By Samuel Strait, Reporter at Large – July 23, 2021 Conscience is an inner feeling or voice that acts as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one's behavior. Very often it serves as a wake up call to whether or not what you have done is the proper way to go forward. If for example, the path that you have taken to get to a certain point is fraught with questionable behavior or practice, your conscience gives you the opportunity to determine if you have conducted yourself in a manner that MOST, not 50% plus one or by $19 AND CHANGE, do not feel your behavior is objectionable. After the recent debacle surrounding the Crescent Fire Protection District's (CFPD) quest for a funding increase, the District's Board might have asked themselves is my conscience clear of any sense that the process was not above board? Did the measure really address the issue of whether or not the election process was fair? Were the electorate, those property owners truly well informed about what the consequences of what the passage meant to them? Was there a win at all costs exhibited in the Fire Fighter Community rather than an objective look at what was really necessary to provide service? Was weighted ballots and caps of $1,000 on large property owners an equitable way of learning the truth about the rightness of the measure? It is certainly clear that there are many things about the most recent election process that the CFPD does not care about or does not wish to know about in the process that has just completed. When a bit over 5,000 ballots are mailed to parcel owners and only 1738 are received in return, that represents less than 34% of those that will be affected by the assessment. Furthermore less than 17% of those affected by the measure encumbered the entire district with the tax increase. Hardly a majority. Granted most elections are not represented by the entire electorate, but it serves to highlight just how unpopular the decision to continue in the way that the District's Board has chosen to proceed. It begs the question, does the District's Board have the best intentions towards the people it serves? In this case probably a better method of going about this election should have been employed. As in the fall during the previous failed measure, the District had a golden opportunity to insure a more equitable process and a less convoluted outcome. They chose instead to hire a company which holds winning above all else. The Board has chosen to follow along. Where is your conscience? And what should it be telling you? Having a conscience that leads a person along a path that enshrines "rightness" is the bedrock of a properly functioning society. It was certainly clear to those that wrote the Constitution which guides this Country along the path of what should be right. Our early leadership correctly identified the notion that when you as a governing body wish to ask for money from the electorate, more than a simple majority should be required. For some time now this practice has been dispensed with in a growing number of instances and correspondingly given the electorate more and more ammunition in opposition to such practices. Simple majorities where opposition to a measure nearly equals that of the "winning side" merely enhances the feelings of exclusion and breeds an under current of dissatisfaction with what ever decision is reached. This is where it is crucial for the District to examine their collective consciences and ask themselves is this the right way to proceed? Have we done everything possible to insure we are on the right side of the equation? In this case probably not.