Commentary and Opinion By Samuel Strait – June 23, 2023

I apologize for the lengthy delay in reporting on last Tuesday’s Board
of Supervisors meeting, as, while I was out of town and had to view the
proceedings on video, it some how has become a continuous and steady
spectacle of gross mismanagement and indifference to the public in order
to facilitate the comfort of Del Norte County’s over paid and under
preforming bureaucracy.  It is almost as if everyone except those that
work for the County, or those that benefit from their connections with
County government are the sole concern of the five current members of
the BOS.

One would expect some sort of occasional dissent from the two newest
members, but they have quickly fallen into a pattern of nearly always
agreeing with anything that comes before them.  5-0 continues to be the
norm with few signs that growing and irrelevant government is not a
standard that is met at every meeting.  There appears to be no attempt
to determine whether any thing local government does even works or has
some value to the people that it is meant to serve.  It continues to be
round after round of back slapping congratulatory praise heaped on the
County’s malefactors in its various departments that are void of
satisfactory performance.  It quite frankly has become a circus of under
preforming County departments that constantly squawk about “needing more
people and money”, yet continue to fail to produce. The Board continues
to reward such behavior with raises without merit.  Then when the
funding balance is precariously nearing zero, there is no sense that
reducing salaries or cutting under performing departments and programs
is even a consideration.  No, the first thought by the BOS is increase
sales tax, more money from property owners, and gouging the visitors
that come to town.

It has become embarrassing to report every two weeks about how worthless
our local governments have become.  They no longer serve the best
interests of our community, but lavish what few resources we have on a
bloated bureaucracy that is there to serve themselves and those that
feed at the same trough.  Public comment, after public comment goes
without any semblance of recognizing that the fundamental problems that
have plagued this County for decades, continue to be problems.  All the
“lip stick” on the pig doesn’t change what continues to be the problems
that the County faces without solution.  Quite frankly, our local
government has become our biggest challenge to righting the ship. 
Government has become the problem!

Services that are contracted for years without evidence of any worth
while service performed, yet are contracts routinely renewed without so
much as a question of value to the County’s citizens. New employees and
regular increases in compensation without regard for value for the
community.  Problems to be addressed by County departments that never
seem to be solved until it is time to ask the over burdened people for
more money out of already stretched thin budgets.  Fantasies that vast
sums are expended which have little value to but a few and those that
already have become fat feeding at the “public trough”.  This is not the
kind of Country that we were promised in 1781 where its citizens were
meant to have the freedom from a nanny state government that allowed
INDIVIDUALS to have the opportunity to be successful.  This is precisely
why local government has failed consistently for years to allow that to
occur.  Twice a month the BOS meetings have become our version of what
government was NEVER meant to become in this County or any where else in
the United States of America. This BOS needs to wake up and find the
courage to do something positive about the continual disaster.