It’s time for a change on Signal Mountain. Two of the incumbent council members have proven themselves ready for replacement, and it’s time for the voters to show them the door.
I don’t need to mention their names. I’ll just call them the “Lockstep Ladies.” Everywhere you see a sign for one of them, you also see a sign for the other. The Lockstep Ladies are “running together” just as surely as Farmer and White did years ago. I wonder why they even bothered to buy separate signs – they could have saved money (and avoided the pretense of “not being running mates”) by just putting both names on the same hunk of plastic.
What concerns me much more than their running together, though, is the way the Lockstep Ladies always vote together. On essentially every significant issue that has come up during their mutual tenure on the Town Council, the Lockstep Ladies have voted identically – with each other, and with the mayor. The three of them have formed an impenetrable voting bloc that effectively shuts out the remaining two members and their ideas and concerns. Three votes trump all. No dissent, or even suggestions, are wanted or needed.
Together, the mayor and the Lockstep Ladies enacted a significant property tax increase, just months after one of the Ladies commented in a public candidate forum that she saw no need, in the foreseeable future, for a tax hike. Nothing materially changed with respect to the Town’s financial situation in the meantime, so she was either fibbing, or clueless about the budget situation. I’m not sure which is worse.
Together they ran off the MACC Foundation. Together they killed off the formerly successful HodgePodge festival. And together, they purged town boards and commissions of anyone who wasn’t on board with their agenda.
Just last night (Monday, Oct. 13), the Lockstep Ladies and the mayor displayed arrogance and distrust toward future citizens and future councils by approving an unnecessary and irresponsible “conservation easement” to be granted – “in perpetuity” – to an outside entity that is in no way representative of, or accountable to, the citizens of Signal Mountain.
The worst part about this action is that it represents a betrayal of the fiduciary responsibility that every government official owes to his or her constituents. In layman’s terms, “fiduciary responsibility” means that government officials owe the citizens a duty to be good and faithful stewards of public assets. Giving away something of value for free is not being a good and faithful steward – it is the opposite, financial malfeasance.
The agreement just approved, by a 3-2 margin (guess which three voted in favor?), donates the “conservation value” of several tracts of public park land to an outside land trust, for zero compensation to the citizens of the town. But, if those rights are ever to be reclaimed for any reason (even something as benign or even beneficial as a land swap for more favorable park land elsewhere), the taxpayers would be on the hook to reimburse the land trust for the “conservation value” of the land in question.
That’s a pretty sweet deal for the land trust that, you should know, is paying nothing for the conservation easement, but could potentially reap a future financial windfall. It’s a pretty raw deal for the town taxpayers, though.
For these and any number of other reasons, the Lockstep Ladies need to go. There is an old saying, “if two people agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary.” A logical corollary would be “if three people agree on everything, two of them are unnecessary.” The mayor has two years to serve on his term. Absent a recall (which has happened before on Signal), we are stuck with him for at least that long. But, we now have the opportunity to replace both Lockstep Ladies and dissolve the three-vote bloc.
This is why I hope my fellow mountain residents will join me in voting for Bob Spalding, Chris Howley and Dick Gee. The two newcomers, plus the incumbent who has dared to differ with the others, represent our best chance for a town government that actually represents the entirety of the community.
I am not voting for Spalding, Howley, and Gee because I have any illusion that any or all of them will agree with me on any given issue, let alone every issue. In fact, I am already aware of several issues where I differ with one, two, or all three of these gentlemen. Rather, I am voting for them because I don’t think they will always agree with each other. And that is a good thing.
Local government shouldn’t be about everyone agreeing on everything all the time. It should be about a board that is representative of the community as a whole, where no fixed voting blocs exist and everyone has to represent his or her ideas to the rest of the council and convince at least two others (and not always the same two) that they are good and valid. Coalitions should be temporary and fluid, not carved in stone and used to exclude those with differing viewpoints.
For these reasons, I urge all Signal Mountain voters to vote out the Lockstep Ladies and elect candidates who will think, and vote, independently. Vote Spalding, Howley and Gee on Nov. 4 or in early voting.
Joe Dumas
Signal Mountain