By Samuel Strait, Reporter at Large – May 28, 2021 It would appear with the recent announcement by Dr. Warren Rehwaldt, Del Norte County might be able to shed itself of one bureaucratic dictator likely to be replaced by another very shortly, or maybe even two. At what point will the current madness at all levels of this Country's governments cease to bedevil us? With the continued effort by our "sippy cup" occupant of the White House and the slick back haired empty suit in Sacramento when will rational thought and common sense return to leadership and their collective bureaucracies in this Nation? The list of actions at the national level of "train wreck" is long and very damaging to everyone in this Country. Our State level of catastrophe has been leading this mess like a runaway locomotive for years. At the local level, both City and County, have dutifully followed this locomotive with little regard for those that live in this delightful part of California. This first question that might be asked of those that live in this County, is, when will the madness be called on to stop. When one examines just the most recent developments over the past year or so, it is hard to believe a free and open society would allow themselves to be treated in such a fashion. At the County level one only needs to look at the recently passed 1% sales tax increase to notice that all the promises leading up to its passage have not materialized. The same goes for the City. Both the County and the City have received or will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in Covid style relief, some before the sales tax passage even occurred. Yet government's insatiable need for more money seems unabated. More money for the harbor, increases for recycling collection by DNSWMA, the fairgrounds quarter cent sales tax hike, rumblings at the school district for more money, now the City is taking aim at raising water and sewer rates, and not to forget the CFPD's effort to increase your property tax by $74 per year. One does not even have to add up the cost of all the trampling of civil rights which has happened since the hysteria over Covid-19 to understand that we live in a self inflicted world of gradual submergence to our own governments and many seem to be quite comfortable in their subservience. For many in this Country, not to exclude those locally, are content to let our local dictators separate themselves from the "regular folks" and assume powers of telling us what to accept. Previously an individual had a large measure of control over what happens in their lives, that recently has all the appearance of slipping away. Monetary burdens placed by government, "emergency" edicts in the name of keeping us "safe", and now emerging talk of societal restrictions on those that refuse to bow to becoming a "Big Pharma" guinea pig. As California has experienced their first experience at population decline, one wonders if this will become the pattern for the United States as a whole. People wish to come to this Country for the freedoms it offers. If freedom becomes a thing of the past as it appears to be headed in our current scenario, will the citizens in this Country continue to sit still for this abuse or make the change to restore what this Country was about? Country's have come and gone through out history when they begin to forget what made them great in the first place. Is the United States doomed to follow in history's footsteps? Some in this Country feel that we are past the ability to reverse course, and we may be unless governments responsive to citizenry is restored. How is Del Norte County doing to halt the madness?