Sounds like Conan Smith, looking in the mirror. Apparently this wasn’t an issue when the current County Commission was downsized reccently. If Smith really believes this, and isn’t looking to expand his own political power, he should not run for reelection.

The flux in the WCRC of recent years is a positive thing that has resulted in appointments of people with a good public service viewpoint and some long experience in politics. Backing off from Cmr. LaBarre’s rephrase of “Politics is war by other means”, it is nevertheless true that politics in the best sense has a real function, namely of balancing off competing interests to arrive at the best-functioning solution that can be agreed upon by all. The habit of appointing well-known political actors, which could be viewed as cronyism, is rather making sure that there is a short learning curve for this very sensitive and critically responsible body.

The WCRC has had to work with a chronically inadequate budget with which to accomplish a task that touches almost everyone’s lives on a daily basis. Since there is never enough money, regional and superlocal interests competing for attention also run up against best judgment from an engineering and administrative viewpoint (the most functionally valid solutions are not always the popular ones).

Best wishes to the BOC and congratulations to Chair Rabhi for his sensitive handling of the discussion to date.