On Article 34: Even when voters want something, needing to go to the ballot to confirm puts a thumb on the scale against that thing. Suppose every act of your council required a referendum. Replacing a fire hydrant? Referendum. Want to rezone a plot by your train station, so a blighted storefront can be replaced with a mixed-use building? Referendum. Each requires tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, for a special election. Or you batch up every action in the next major election, and ask the voters to read through hundreds of separate measures.
This is why we have a republic. Direct democracy is not a functional system more than a few dozen people.
Huge majorities in our county consistently say they want more affordable housing. The Association of Realtors, which sponsored Article 34 when it was created, now says it should be repealed.
The will of the voters is still involved — the voters elect county supervisors and city councilmembers, and those officials appoint various planning commissioners, as well as choosing and directing city staff. The voters do not need to be directly involved in every niggling little detail, and trying to force them to be involved just results in paralysis — which was the entire point of Article 34. “Council can’t do what the voters elected them to do, because we made it expensive and complicated” is not local control.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.