After reading Councilwoman/Deputy Clerk Christine Cid's political diatribe and her misuse of the facts and attacks on me for her own personal agenda, I call on her to do the following things to help her through the budget process:
1. Read the Good Government Initiative study to understand the great things going on in the county surveyor's operations and follow its recommendations.
2. Seriously talk to me for the first time since she's been in office, like every other councilperson has done many times, so she can begin to understand.
3. Reread the budget she's been presented, with the help of committee chairs, so she can gain the historical perspective and institutional knowledge she's totally missing.
4. Put aside the political agenda she constantly carries from her job in the clerk's office, and instead look to provide leadership, not divisiveness, during this critical time.
5. Renounce her strong support for the 2 percent income tax increase she's spoken for, worked for and voted for at least twice. We don't need more taxes if she can understand, communicate and listen without her previous bias and prejudice.
Cid's illogical shots about cutting millions of dollars from the county surveyor's budget is an insult to her colleagues who have carefully helped construct our budgets yearly, is an insult to the professionals who wrote the Good Government study, and an ignorance of what the surveyor's office does.
Her ignorance cannot be helped by an engineer, as she says she'll get to help her understand, because only a small part of what we do can be explained by a specialized engineer. These are administrative budgets that, if she will study, and wants to understand, she can.
She's wrong about a surveyor's $5 million budget. Not even close. She's also very wrong about a 34 percent increase in my budget since I took office, though that would be an average of only 2 percent per year. She ignores the special flood projects, acts of God, rain emergencies, federal mandates, new state laws, tremendous service improvements and the cost of starting up a wonderful geographic information system from scratch, the pay raises the council gives, and much more.
As a former county councilman, I did several things during my tenure that could help Cid to help herself improve as a councilperson.
1. When I was elected, I resigned from my other county government position with the late Sheriff Bob Stiglich, so I could serve all of the people without conflict of interest. Nobody can serve two masters at the same time.
2. I interviewed, spent hours, days, with every elected official, friend or foe, and their people, studying, learning and understanding. I developed real communication with all officials, not just some. It worked. Frugality and fairness resulted.
3. I concentrated on several specific areas in which to become an expert while relying on my colleagues' areas of expertise as they did with me. The committee system works if you take the politics out.
4. I studiously avoided conflict with officials I was expected to have political conflicts with. My service on the council was better for it.
Cid needs to put aside her personal and political vendettas.
