By Samuel Strait – Reporter at Large – April 13, 2022 To answer the question posed by Supervisor Chris Howard, District Three's representative on the Del Norte Board Of Supervisors to the question "Why" County Government does what it does, shouldn't surprise a great many people who live and work within the County. While Supervisor Howard is under the illusion that he speaks for more than a small minority of the County's citizens, this minority does not represent the thoughts and wishes of most that reside here once fully informed of just what the government has encumbered them with. The issues he claims the County has failed to address are of long standing, and will continue to exist no matter how many people the County employs to address them, nor how much money it expends to employ the additions to the work force. The issues will remain as long as County Government listens to only the few and does not listen to the many. Over the course of the last five decades County government has expanded to become unrecognizable, yet core issues remain, unaddressed. Both the County's budget and workforce have expanded exponentially with no recognizable difference in level of service or benefit to its citizens. In the past year, with the funding provided by Measure "R" there has been no improvement in County services, nor is there expected to be no matter how long Measure "R" continues. Government is quite simply incapable of solving all problems for all people and shouldn't be in the business of trying. Each individual is uniquely different from all others, requiring different solutions to each problem they seek to resolve. Government one size fits all solutions are doomed to failure in all cases except for a few in the population. To be "proactive" as Supervisor Howard has proclaimed that the County is being by electing to grow government at public expense is not an acceptable answer to the "Why" he has been asked. Similarly government cannot provide tailor made solutions to each and every problem that constituents pose. It is for this reason that this COUNTRY provided that government be limited to only those things it could provide that a significant percentage of the population wished to have addressed. This does not mean that government could ask for funding to expand services based on a bare majority, while PROMISING certain problems would be fixed, WITHOUT EXPANDING THE BREADTH AND SCOPE OF THAT GOVERNMENT. This is precisely what County government has done with not only Measure "R" money, but in far to many other instances within the general fund and use of grant funding. It becomes very difficult for the average citizen when government becomes so incomprehensible as to make most items addressed by the Board come in the form of "Why is the Board even doing what is being proposed?", let alone spending their money on it. A typical Board meeting addresses issues that have no practical benefit, nor relevance to the majority of local residents. They seem to only follow regulations that are passed on to local residents from "on high" that do not address any fundamental or necessary issues in the local community, yet cost local residents money from their pockets to comply. Even at the local level the population is continually bombarded with the need to "provide" vital services that to most people are hardly "vital" in their particular world. This is particularly the case with recent expenditures by the County from the "Measure 'R' funding". All the hysteria proclaimed by the Board and the County's CAO, Neal Lopez, over loss of "vital" services should the funding be eliminated, is but complete fabrication to serve interests that are not those of most County residents. Even though the expenditure of Measure "R" funding is in its infancy, there has been no noticeable improvement of services, let alone those "considered vital". It is with complete false posturing and hypocrisy to have local bureaucrats line up with union representatives to proclaim ruin and devastation should funding be reduced. It is also unfathomable that both the Union President and County Bureaucrats would make the claim that should Measure "R" go away that salaries and benefits as well as "new" employees would vanish when contracts would have to be honored. The level of spin put out by County government before Measure "R" repeal has even been addressed at the voting booth is breath taking. One wonders how government even managed to function in the pre-Measure "R" days of local government. No one is disputing the fact that government doesn't always get the job done, nor even do it correctly when it tries. We all have become well acquainted with the fiasco known as the Federal and State governments particularly over the last fifteen months. It would be nice if our local government would stop being "proactive" and let us all at least be able to afford to live in this County. Thank you very much Supervisor Howard….