By Kevin Holsapple Los Alamos
Amongst the various elective office contests and ballot questions on the slate for November’s election are four local Charter ballot questions deserving of your attention and affirmation.
They deal with making improvements to the County Charter provisions dealing with citizen initiatives, referendums, recalls, and future Charter revisions.
A group formed by the County Council called the Charter Review Committee (CRC) performed a comprehensive review of the County Charter over the past few years, held a whole bunch of public meetings to collect ideas and inputs, and formulated several well considered and well informed recommendations to the County Council for improving the Charter.
Several of these recommendations are the basis for the ballot questions that are now being considered.
I am voting “yes” on each of the questions for several reasons.
First, the process that produced these recommended improvements was a good one.
It engaged a great set of citizens with no collective axe to grind … it utilized an exhaustive approach to seeking and making use of public input from all comers … and it produced a solid set of recommendations and rationale for improving the charter.
I compliment the energy and devotion of the CRC to providing a fair assessment and balanced recommendations.
In addition, the recommendations just plain make sense, bring our community into alignment with other communities and New Mexico law, make the Charter easier to understand, and will improve how our community conducts itself.
Please tune in, and vote “yes” on Nov. 6.
