June 21, 2012Editorial
“Don’t let the people vote!”
Yesterday’s State Boundary Commission hearing went on for three hours, ending a little past 7pm, as one commissioner pointed out, "on the longest day of the year."
Following ten-minute summary presentations by the “interested parties”—the CGC, the Township, both cities, and the citizens group opposing consolidation (CGC's remarks here)—and rebuttals by some of these parties (CGC’s rebuttal remarks here), individual citizens, who had signed up indicating they wanted to address the Commission, came to the microphone.
Without question, the greatest number of speakers at this particular meeting opposed consolidation. That said, the vast majority of those opposing consolidation were Saugatuck Township residents. Since Saugatuck Township is still part of the original consolidation petition filed last November, the Township residents rightly voiced their opinions.
The remainder of the opposition speakers from Douglas and Saugatuck cited everything from their view that the CGC’s Plante Moran cost-savings studies were somehow flawed (one speaker was miffed that each study was only five pages long as if length and quality of analysis were somehow correlated), to any number who worried that consolidation would somehow change what they liked about their hometown (“I moved to Saugatuck to be in Saugatuck, not Douglas,” said one). Speakers from the local governments talked about their exhaustive studies on consolidation, studies that the public has never seen, and many doubt even exist. Quite a number of opposition speakers directly asked the Commission to “pull the consolidation petition.”
But no one opposed to consolidation pointedly said: “Don’t let consolidation get to the voters!”
Yet that’s precisely the issue facing Douglas and Saugatuck residents, and the State Boundary Commission. Should consolidation be killed off before the voters get to have their say? Is that how democracy is supposed to work here? After all, just two years ago, the only professional public opinion survey conducted on this subject in the two cities found 74% supported consolidation.
The CGC believes the case has been clearly made that the voters deserve the right to decide on the form of their municipal government. The opposition certainly has the right to almost any contrary opinion—thoughtful or emotional— about consolidation.
Any opinion, that is, except one: They cannot be permitted to stand in the way of the voters.
(Editor's note: A version of this editorial was published in the Holland Sentinel on June 27, 2012, as a letter to the editor here.)
Following ten-minute summary presentations by the “interested parties”—the CGC, the Township, both cities, and the citizens group opposing consolidation (CGC's remarks here)—and rebuttals by some of these parties (CGC’s rebuttal remarks here), individual citizens, who had signed up indicating they wanted to address the Commission, came to the microphone.
Without question, the greatest number of speakers at this particular meeting opposed consolidation. That said, the vast majority of those opposing consolidation were Saugatuck Township residents. Since Saugatuck Township is still part of the original consolidation petition filed last November, the Township residents rightly voiced their opinions.
The remainder of the opposition speakers from Douglas and Saugatuck cited everything from their view that the CGC’s Plante Moran cost-savings studies were somehow flawed (one speaker was miffed that each study was only five pages long as if length and quality of analysis were somehow correlated), to any number who worried that consolidation would somehow change what they liked about their hometown (“I moved to Saugatuck to be in Saugatuck, not Douglas,” said one). Speakers from the local governments talked about their exhaustive studies on consolidation, studies that the public has never seen, and many doubt even exist. Quite a number of opposition speakers directly asked the Commission to “pull the consolidation petition.”
But no one opposed to consolidation pointedly said: “Don’t let consolidation get to the voters!”
Yet that’s precisely the issue facing Douglas and Saugatuck residents, and the State Boundary Commission. Should consolidation be killed off before the voters get to have their say? Is that how democracy is supposed to work here? After all, just two years ago, the only professional public opinion survey conducted on this subject in the two cities found 74% supported consolidation.
The CGC believes the case has been clearly made that the voters deserve the right to decide on the form of their municipal government. The opposition certainly has the right to almost any contrary opinion—thoughtful or emotional— about consolidation.
Any opinion, that is, except one: They cannot be permitted to stand in the way of the voters.
(Editor's note: A version of this editorial was published in the Holland Sentinel on June 27, 2012, as a letter to the editor here.)
