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This is nothing more than a glimpse into an example of what sort of people have power over your lives at the local level.

In July 2006 there were three candidates competing for a vacancy on the Dover City Council. Based on profiles in the Dover Post, I chose Jim McGiffin as the best prospect for considering majority will in his decisions.

(Another candidate, Fred Tolbert, I already knew from personal experience to be a devout believer in the people needing "leaders". Fred is Sole Emperor of our neighborhood, Persimmon Park Place, and has crushed every effort of mine to get majority will considered.)

I wrote Jim McGiffin:

I might vote for you, but I guarantee I will vote for you if you will make this promise: that you will always poll your constituents on every issue, and your action on the city council will ways reflect majority will.

It's a new kind of "leadership" that goes beyond anything previously imagined.

Think about it.

Thanks.

Donald Sauter

Jim kindly and honestly responded:

Thanks for your message. I would greatly appreciate your vote, but I cannot promise that I would poll constituents on every issue. Some issues may come up and require action too quickly. Some may require confidentiality (personnel issues and litigation issues come to mind as possibilities), and some issues will be more administrative in nature than substantive. I can promise that I will foster communication with constituents, that I will seek input from the residents constantly, and that I will always be open to opinions and ideas. I can also promise that I will act with he best interests of the third district residents my primary concern.

Jim McGiffin

Being a born head-against-the-wall-beater, I replied:

Thanks for the extended reply - much appreciated. Pure democracy has been my "thing" for the last 20 years. Examining it from every direction, I can't imagine a better system. I claim it can be logically proved to be the best system. (The majority rejecting majority rule gives rise to a paradox, see?) Even if the majority goofed up now and then - which I claim would be very rare - a) we would have nobody to blame but ourselves, and b) we would know we goofed up and undo the mistake. Compare that to conventional government, where the ordinary citizen can only gnash his teeth at our "leaders", and once something is implemented, we've got it forever. In any event, I have no doubts about your good intentions. I am a good friend of one of your opponents, who I also know to be a man of good intentions. But his natural thirst for power and control scares me to death. He always "knows best."

Moving from the somewhat philosophical to the practical, I want to point out that the internet can give an instant reading of the majority position. (Not that telephone technology couldn't have done the same job for the last 100 years.)

Donald

In April 2007 Jim made probably his most visible appearance up to that time in a Dover Post article called "Petition causes confusion for Council, Schoolview residents. The issue was rezoning some land for apartments in a neighborhood that didn't want apartments. The problem with the petition was that some residents signed for their spouses. The city council was divided over whether they should get another chance.

    Before the council meeting, about 25% of residents
    involved had signed the petition; because of the incorrect
    signatures, that number dropped to about 14%.
    City Solicitor Nicholas Rodriguez said the incorrect
    signatures were not uncommon.

    "You really can't blame them for that," he said. "I've
    seen petitions signed like that in the past."

    On the other hand, Rodriguez said it's not the job of
    council to teach the law to citizens.

    Both councilmen Eugene Ruane and William
    McGlumphy argued council should inform its citizens
    of proper procedure.

    It was this argument Councilman Jim McGiffin
    found problematic.

    "It's not the city's job to inform them of that," he
    said.  "We could never do a complete job of that, and to
    do an incomplete job would be a disservice."

    McGiffin, who voted against tabling the issue, said
    residents should have known better than to sign for
    their spouses.

    "They were all homeowners sitting in that room," he
    said. "They've all signed deeds, and they didn't sign
    the deed Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner."

That's the spirit, Jim! Who cares what the people want when we have technicalities???

In any case, the rezoning eventually went through. The petition was just a sop, anyway; the most they could have gotten out of it was requiring a majority plus one vote from the council.

Government always gets what it wants. And what developers want, government wants. Any surprises there?

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