It’s getting down to the wire, and I’m in a quandry.
I can’t decide what to do.
On one hand, I want to run and hide until well after next Tuesday’s election. I’m afraid of what might happen. This is worse than thinking we’d elect Mitt Romney President in 2012, after just one term of Barack Obama. That November night I was really worried the racists and the bigots would pull it out of the hat, and give the win to Romney. Fortunately, it turned out well that time. I was stunned when we then handed this country over to Donald Trump in 2016. How could anyone think he’d be a better President than Hillary? Even if you hated her with a passion, how could Trump be a better choice?
On the other hand, I find myself hitting the refresh icon on my Twitter and Facebook feeds much too often, worried I might miss something. These Trump caravans of lifted trucks, and these super-spreader rallies worry me. He’s whipped them into a frenzy, and I’m afraid they’ll go nuts when he loses. Especially if he loses by a landslide.
I’m crossing my fingers and hoping we’re smart enough to toss the right-wing, fascist trash out, and clean house. The White House. The Senate, too. But I’m really worried about the after-math. It’s making me as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
If we’re not, smart that is, we’ll deserve our fate. Putin will be cackling with glee if we don’t toss Trump, McConnell, McCarthy, and Nunes from office with numbers that clearly repudiate them and their malfeasance.
So I’m sitting here trying not to be nauseous, telling myself that everything will be fine, and that on January 20 we’ll have real leadership and experience at the helm. That no matter what Trump and the GOP did to damage our country, the repair crews will be dispatched, damage control parties will be at work, and we can step down from Red Alert to merely Yellow Alert. The ship of state will be refitted, even if we have to go into space-dock to do it.
As much as I keep telling myself that, though, I keep wondering about a remote bunker without internet access or cell phone coverage.
Oh, who am I kidding?
“click” refresh
JimmieJoe / KC6YRU 
A mystery, a hunt, then success!
October 15, 2024
Jim Reeves commentary, News, Personal city government, City of Visalia Charter, election, elections, News, politics, visalia, Visalia Charter, Visalia City Clerk, voting Leave a comment
On September 8, I wrote about the City of Visalia and it’s Charter. I noticed in one section it said (Deleted November 4, 1974). No mention of what that section was, or why it was “deleted”.
Under Article XVI, Section 21 said simply “(Deleted November 4, 1974)”
Well, I needed to know what that was all about.
I cogitated about it for a while. A mystery that kept bugging me, begging to be solved. Last Monday I decided to track down the truth, if possible. Looking online hadn’t turned up the missing section, and it had been 50 years since the change was made. The local newspaper doesn’t have online access for historical stuff, and while I had the date of the vote taken to approve changes to the Charter, I didn’t know when the City Council had acted to put the measure on the ballot. That could have been almost any time in 1974, to have time to get it on the mid-term election ballot in November. I really didn’t want to sit in front of the micro-fiche reader at the library, scrolling through the newspapers for every day that year! (Are micro-fiche readers and their films still a thing?)
The hunt had to be done the old-fashioned way – sleuthing in person.
I headed down to the library to see if they had a copy of the original charter, but they were closed for Indigenous People’s Day (It might be called something else, too, but never mind that…)
Next stop – The City Clerk’s office. I was surprised to find the offices open, since it was that holiday. I also expected it might take a while to find that for which I was looking. I was afraid that the relevant documents would be in that warehouse where the US Government stuck the Ark of the Covenant, as seen in one of the Indiana Jones’ movies, or in Warehouse 13. The City Clerk thought it might take some digging, too. The Assistant City Manager came by as we were discussing the Charter, and since he’s new to the city as well, he didn’t know anything about the change. The Clerk took my info, and told me she would research it. I expected I might hear something back in a week or so, if I was lucky. Surprise, surprise, they found and emailed me the original text before I even got home! Talk about service!
The original Charter contained the following:
Article XVI. Miscellaneous Provisions:
Section 21.
Neither the City Manager nor any person in the employ of the City shall take any active part in securing, or shall contribute money toward the nomination or election of any candidate for a municipal office.
Seems in 1974 the City decided to do a bit of tweaking to the Charter, and since the only way it can be changed is a vote of the people, it was on the ballot in November 1974. The above section was deleted. (I’m assuming it was due to infringing on people’s rights to support the candidate of their choice, even though they were city employees.) Some other wording was added, looks like to clarify some minor things that had changed in the previous 50 years.
It’s been 50 years since that update, and I think it’s time to do another refresh.
I noticed references to the City Manager (and other offices as well) as “he” or “his” throughout the Charter. We don’t have a “he/him” City Manager now, so time to change the masculine pronouns to gender-neutral.
(the fact that changing masculine pronouns in city documents will undoubtedly raise the blood pressure of those who see such things as “woke liberalism” is a bonus in my book!)
Thank you to the new City Clerk, Jennifer Gomez, for digging this up for me!
Mystery solved!
(even if it was a bit anti-climatic. I was hoping for some good, scandalous dirt! oh well…)
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