Cabarrus Cheap Seats

28 responses so far ↓

• 1 MarkMartin // Nov 26, 2007 at 11:05 am

  Perhaps the solution is more of a ‘big picture’ approach and less of a single focal point. When I ran for County Commissioner in 2004 one of the agenda items in my platform was expanding the Board of Commissioners from 5 members to 7. In addition to the expansion, I proposed the creation of ‘districts’ in the County. There could be 5 districts which would allow representation from Concord, Harrisburg, Kannapolis, Midland/Locust, and Mt. Pleasant. The remaining 2 seats could be ‘At Large’.

• 2 Justin Thibault // Nov 27, 2007 at 10:05 am

  Mark - Interesting idea. I just promoted your ID to Author so it should be easier for you to expand on this idea; and I encourage you to do so.

  Please e-mail me if you have any problems with the software.

  Of course, anyone else can post an article by using the Be Heard link.

• 3 Steve Smith // Nov 28, 2007 at 12:05 pm

  Do you mean District Representation like Mecklenburg County. Yea works real well over there (sic)…

• 4 Mark Smith // Nov 28, 2007 at 5:24 pm

  In 2004 when I ran for County Commissioner, I recall the issue of expanding Board of Commissioners. I still oppose the issue of expanding the Board for a few reasons.

  First, as a conservative, I cannot see a good reason to expand government unnecessarily. Expanding from 5 to 7 increases government and bureaucracy.

  Next, our Board represents everyone in Cabarrus County, from Gold Hill Road to Tom Query Road; Hwy. 29 N in Kannapolis to the most southern tip on Hwy. 601 in Midland and everywhere else in between. If you establish districts, then you create a system where Commissioners are only worried about meeting the needs of the district they represent, not necessarily the county. The Commissioners are only accountable to the voters in their district, not to the whole county.

  Third, we have competitive races in the primaries and general elections. If you create districts, the races may not be as competitive as they are now; thus you are restricting the opportunity for folks to be on the board. If you recall in 2004, 5 of the 9 Republican candidates were from Mt. Pleasant. Under our current system, all five of them (in theory) could have been elected instead of only three as proposed in the district representation idea. Thus, you are limiting opportunities of the people.

  Finally, I believe Mr. Thibault has addressed the lack of competitive races in the Concord City Council race elsewhere in the blog. One of his points is that district representation limits competitive races.

  Bottom line - I oppose expanding the Board of Commissioners to district representation.

  As always, thank you for the opportunity to express my opinion.

  I’m Mark Smith and I approve of this message.

• 5 Justin Thibault // Nov 28, 2007 at 11:03 pm

  Steve - As a Republican, I think that district representation has been good there if for no other reason that is actually gets some Republicans on the board even if they’re outnumbered 5-4. Given that that county went to Kerry in 2004 - that’s not all that bad.

  Mark - First, My dad is “Mr. Thibault”. I’m Justin.

  Second, My issue with the districts in Concord is that they take the worst of both worlds. The main disadvantage with districts is that you limit the pool of candidates and the main disadvantage with at-large elections is that elections are determined by large constituencies (e.g. Township 12 in Concord determines who’s on the Board for Township 2 people). Concord has managed to do both such that the decisions are made by a Union Street-based oligarchy. That’s by design. I used to not have a problem with it from a practical standpoint - until the Speedway debacle.

  And that brings me to how I personally might feel about district representation. As someone who lives in a less-organized part of Concord - I’d like some district representation; because our governmental needs are greater than dumping a lot of public money into restoring Downtown Concord. We’re lacking some basic services that we might be getting if we had strong district representation. Similarly, I think that people in Mt. Pleasant and Midland might have similar feelings about how we in Concord, Kannapolis, and - increasingly - Harrisburg have a large say in the At-Large Commissioners elections.

• 6 MarkMartin // Nov 29, 2007 at 10:15 am

  Justin - I agree with your viewpoint. During my years of service in the Harrisburg area as an elected official, we always felt ‘left out’ of the bigger picture from the Board of Commissioners. Ironically, Harrisburg is in one of the fastest growing areas of the County.

  MarkSmith - I am not surprised by your continued opposition to this idea. I believe we could find plenty of people who would agree that the current BOC is NOT representing everyone in the County and the creation of districts will provide equal representation. The reason why so many candidates from the Mt. Pleasant area ran in 2004 was because they had valid issues of concern in ‘their’ area of the county. Districts could actually create more competition because it would allow ‘local’ issues to rise to the surface for debate. Perhaps your opposition to this idea is due to the fact that an expanded BOC with Districts would further weaken the Cabarrus Taxpayers Association. I do recall campaign literature in 2004 paid for by the Cabarrus Taxpayers Association that promoated you as a candidate.

• 7 MarkMartin // Nov 29, 2007 at 10:27 am

  Here is a question for everyone: if district representation doesn’t work; then why do we have 50 States? Why do we have 100 Counties in NC?

• 8 Andy Yates // Nov 29, 2007 at 10:43 am

  The biggest problem with district representation is that drawing the districts becomes a huge political issue in and of itself, and districts can rather easily be drawn to ensure that a certain group stays in power regardless of whether they have the support of the majority of the voters or not. NC’s State Legislative elections are a perfect example of this. In recent legislative elections for the State House and Senate, GOP Candidates have won better than 50% of the vote statewide but have failed to win a majority of the seats in either the House or Senate simply because of the way the districts are drawn. You better believe that if we had district representation when Coy and his cohorts controlled the board they would have found a way to draw districts that would have made it easier for them to hold on to power. Now that’s scary isn’t it? It’s also bad for democracy.

  The other major problem I see with district representation is that it fosters regionalism among members of the commission. This can easily create the “if my community doesn’t get a new school or new road or new park or whatever than no one gets one mentality (forget that my community doesn’t really need it but yours does)” which results in either nothing getting done or even worse everything getting done whether necessary or not.

  Also, maybe I’m naive but I feel that a good, hard-working commissioner can balance the needs of the entire community and come up with decisions that are in the best interest of the county as a whole. I’d much rather have 5 commissioners trying to come up with a solution that’s best for the whole county than 2 looking at the whole picture and 5 only looking at what’s best for their distrct.

  My .02 cents…

• 9 Andy Yates // Nov 29, 2007 at 11:13 am

  Mark:

  I can see your point about 50 states and 100 counties. At some point you have to divide areas up to be able to govern them effectively and for functionality. That’s why those states have been further broken down into legislative districts on both the state and federal level. However at some point, areas become too small to divide and to still be able to govern them effectively and for them to function. I guess that’s more of the question here, where does Cabarrus fall?

  I for one feel that when you start dividing up counties like Cabarrus you run into more problems than you solve…

• 10 Steve Smith // Nov 29, 2007 at 2:17 pm

  If Concord, Kannapolis, Harrisburg, Locust and Midland continue to annex then we can be like Fulton County (Atlanta Ga) no need for County Government…

• 11 Justin Thibault // Nov 29, 2007 at 2:56 pm

  Mark Martin - Well, the 100 counties is a bit anachronistic. The idea behind that division was so people would be within a 1/2 days horse ride of their County Seat. I don’t think we have that issue any more; but I digress.

  Andy - You’re right. The issue is more practical than philosophical. For instance, I would feel more comfortable with a 3 at-large, 4 district. That way, an issue could be decided by convincing all at-large members and one district-based member. Also, Cabarrus is quickly getting to the size that dividing 4 way might make sense; but 5 ways might cause more problems.

  And, of course, drawing the districts is a sticky wicket within itself.

  The issue I have with the current 5 member at-large board is that three of the members are elected in off-year elections. I think if you switched the 2004 candidates and seats with the ones from 2006 - Coy would have had a harder time winning…and that would have been great for all of us.

  Steve - Well, you’re right about the Western Part of the County; but the East still has a significant portion that’s unannexed. I’m sure I’m with most of the people out there that they’d like to just be “just County” for a little while longer.

• 12 MarkMartin // Nov 29, 2007 at 3:58 pm

  Justin - I would support 3 at-large and 4 districts. (maybe we should go back to horse transportation, then gas wouldn’t be $3.00+/gallon)

  Andy - even today without districts, we still see personal agendas at work by elected officials. So I don’t see that as a major issue with districts. I also think regionalism is a positive. When we start with issues at a lower level, they tend to naturally take on a bigger presence which benefit the greater good as they gain exposure. Perhaps?

• 13 Andy Yates // Nov 30, 2007 at 11:01 am

  Mark:

  I think sometimes it is very helpful for issues to start at a lower level. More times than not probably, the best ideas come from the people and not government officials. The biggest problem I have with districts/regionalism is you get into problems, where for example one area of the county desperately needs a new school and everyone knows it, but you have several board members who say that won’t support building a new school for community A unless their community gets one too. Then what happens is either no school gets built, or 3 or 4 schools get built when only one was really needed. Which means either nothing or very little ever gets done or the more likely scenario too much gets done resulting in waste and tax hikes.

  Justin’s three at-large, four district plan may solve this or at least lessen it since you’d only have to have the support of the three at-large members and one district member to pass something. Four districts might actually make sense as you could sort of divide the county up where one distrct is made up of old Concord and old Kannapolis (the 29 corridor I guess), one is the areas of the county that are still mostly rural (Midland around to the Mt. Pleasant area), a Northwest distict, and a Harrisburg/Southwest District.

  Also, if we would go to districts I think it would be really important to create some sort of independent commission to draw the districts and to redraw them when necessary. I think that might solve some of the practical issues.

  I’m still not sold on the idea, but there may be a way to work around the bugs and get it done.

  Justin:

  I think the whole Coy Privette situation could be a way to address the electing 3 commissioners in off years and 2 commissioners in presidential years problem which I agree is a major problem. If Coy resigns before the 08 elections (imo, a huge if) then if my memory is correct Coy’s replacement would only serve through the end of 08, and either Coy’s replacement or someone else would be elected to finish out Coy’s term through 2010, typically the lowest vote-getter gets the 2-year term. Why not instead change it so that the election for the 3rd seat is for a full 4-year term as well? This would most likely take an act of the state legislature and may be easier said than done, but it would definitely solve that easy. If the opportunity arises its worth a thought. I think it might be easier to get this done than get wholesale changes like a district representation plan put in place…

• 14 Justin Thibault // Nov 30, 2007 at 2:04 pm

  Andy - Yeah, it’s one of those situations where you have to ask yourself if five is enough anymore.

  Take the jail. Joni Juba sat out one vote because of a conflict of interest, that left four. There was one vote against the jail and another one in question (because the one “No” voter controlled the questionable voter in other situations). If there had been more Commissioners, that problem wouldn’t have been as intractable.

  However, I don’t know how keen I am on a board that would be 7 members and voted for at-large; because in one election you’d have three open seats and in another four. Take a look whose been the fourth highest vote getter in some instances - get my drift?

• 15 Bob Carruth // Dec 1, 2007 at 7:39 am

  All excellent comments - from an insider’s perspective, I will refer to an exchange from one of Jerry Clower’s old stories -

  “Somebody shoot this thang!!!!”

  “But if we shoot it, we might hit you!”

  “I don’t care! One of us has gots to have some relief!!”

  I’ll write more later, to include my philosphy on how to do districts, but bottom line is this - there are currently 9 elected boards in Cabarrus County - 5 municipal, 2 school boards, 1 county commission, and 1 soil & water conservation district. Want to guess which one has the largest constituency (100% of the county), with the greatest scope of responsibility?

  If you look at all but the soil & water board, the county commission represents more citizens per commissioner than any other board in the county. The size of the board is the same now with 150,000 residents as it was when there were only 70,000.

  The work load now on the board is getting to the point that an additional two members would allow for more visibility, and more involvement in other community organizations where our tax dollars are allocated. Given what has been occurring over the past 1-2 years, the issues that are being dealt with by our board are complex, and require many hours of analysis & discussion outside of the meetings that we attend twice each month. For someone trying to still hold down a full-time profession (like 3 of the 4 commissioners) it is increasingly difficult to keep all the balls in the air. This wears on you tremendously, and discourages good, business minded people from getting involved. A seven member board would help to increase the effectiveness of the board in the community, by dividing this work by 7, rather than by 5.

  One idea to throw out - At least in the past 10 years, the election when 3 are elected showed that 2 of the 3 received, on average, a larger share of the vote than the 3rd place candidate. In 1998, Privette-Barnhart outpaced Fennel, who came within an eyelash of being beaten by Anderson. In 2002, Freeman-Carpenter finished well ahead of Privette. In 2006, Mynatt-White again finished well ahead of Privette. Why not have a provision that requires the 3rd place finisher (or 4th if we go to 7 members) to finish within a certain number of votes of the other winners in order qualify for a 4 year term? If not, then the candidate only gets a two year term. If that had been the case, then Fennel would had to run again in 2000, and Privette in 2004 and 2008.

• 16 Justin Thibault // Dec 2, 2007 at 10:37 pm

  Bob - I did a little research and if you required 50% of the ballots cast to win a 4-year term, then all candidates in 2006, 2004, and 2002 would have won 4-year term.

  However using the 50% criteria, in 2000, Suggs would have only won a 2-year term and, in 1998, Arne Fennel and Coy Privette would have only won a two-year term.

• 17 Justin Thibault // Dec 3, 2007 at 1:27 pm

  Bob - One question:

  If, like Steve Smith said, a greater percentage of the people are going to live in annexed areas and the scope of those local governments is expanding (not to mention more people living in Neighborhood Associations) - wouldn’t the workload on any given Commissioner be lessened by renegotiating the scope of the County and City Governments thus obviating the need for more commissioners?

• 18 Steve Smith // Dec 5, 2007 at 12:06 pm

  Justin

  You must be a mind-reader…city-county government consolidation…works for me!!!

• 19 Justin Thibault // Dec 5, 2007 at 2:15 pm

  Steve - I dunno about a wholesale consolidation given that there are numerous communities; but I’m sure as the situation changes our government would change with it.

  I’d be interested to know the specifics, from your point of view, on how/where we could consolidate.

• 20 Three Threads | Cabarrus Cheap Seats // Dec 6, 2007 at 8:43 am

  [...] Some interesting ideas on reforming the Cabarrus County Board of Commissioners [...]

• 21 MarkMartin // Dec 6, 2007 at 12:45 pm

  The whole ‘consolidation’ idea worries me a little. I am sure there will remain to some degree land areas in Cabarrus County that will not be annex into a municiple district.

  I am also concerned about Bob’s ‘margin of victory’ idea for deciding duration of term.

  Based on all of the posts in this discussion, I like the idea of a 7 member board with 4 districts and 3 at-large.

• 22 Mark Smith // Dec 7, 2007 at 12:23 pm

  Mr. Carruth has some valid points in arguing that the Board needs to go from 5 members to 7 members.

  Here’s an idea if we go to 7 Board members. Every 2 years, 4 people run for a Board of Commissioner. The top three finishers get a 4-year term. The fourth place person gets a 2-year term. It’s a way to make things interesting.

  I still oppose a district representation for reasons I stated earlier in the posts.

• 23 Justin Thibault // Dec 7, 2007 at 12:56 pm

  Mark -
  

  Here’s an idea if we go to 7 Board members. Every 2 years, 4 people run for a Board of Commissioner. The top three finishers get a 4-year term. The fourth place person gets a 2-year term. It’s a way to make things interesting.

  I like that better than my 50% idea because that system would not lead to constant shifts.

  Now the question is - can you pull it off legally?

• 24 Steve Smith // Dec 12, 2007 at 2:08 pm

  I’m for less government, whatever it takes but the County Commissioners (some anyway) are overworked. I can’t figure why in the world anyone would want to be a County Commissioner anyway. The most thankless job in the world. Therefore let me thank the Commissioners who do work tirelessly for us and give of their own time for this County. Thank ya’ll very much. Keep up the good work. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good nite.

• 25 Bob Carruth // Dec 13, 2007 at 7:43 am

  Justin -

  The role of the county commissioners is definitely changing - Right now, just at 4 out of every 5 citizens in the county also live in one of the 6 cities (Part of Locust is also in the county.) With the drastic change we made in zoning densities in 2005, the trend will continue, with more development taking place in town, vs. the unincorporated parts of the county.

  The county has begun the trend of becoming a convener and facilitator between the cities, all while handling many of the human service functions that counties traditionally do - Social Services, Public Health, Senior Services, and of course, School Funding. The role of the county in area planning, zoning, and law enforcement will continue to decrease over the years to come.

  As chairman, I now regularly meet with the mayors, where we discuss emerging issues, and brain-storm possible solutions.

  The key in communication - between all of our boards, and more importantly, between elected officials and the citizens. That’s why I think this forum is the best thing we have going in the future to keep things moving forward!

• 26 Steve Smith // Dec 13, 2007 at 10:53 am

  Bob

  I wonder if other Commissioners read this for forum as you do???

  Justin

  Do you know if they do???

  Just thinking out loud….

• 27 MarkMartin // Dec 13, 2007 at 1:20 pm

  It would be interesting to find out the viewpoint of the BOC as a whole on this subject.

• 28 Justin Thibault // Dec 13, 2007 at 5:25 pm

  Bob - It’s nice to know that you’re talking to the mayors as opposed to suing them as was the way with the old majority.

  Steve & Mark - I know that Grace, Jay, and Joni do on occasion. Coy dropped off my e-mail list after his arrest.

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