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Show Ha Ue RU NOVEMBER 29, 2000 l WASATCH COUNTY COURIER. Commissioners Show Their Respect for the Voters o the commissioners have to ignore the will of decided of the. ‘to set. the. date of the election: Any bets that they will select November new Council, which date shall be 2002? Of course if the Utah Supreme the election for members the people and withdraw from the the very first and earliest special suit to or general have the Utah Court decide if and when. a spe- cial election will the Supreme County’s be held to elect seven new council members. The case will go ahead anyway, with or without the cooperation by state Court. decides the will be do? Ignore the Supreme Court too? If election date allowed past | naw iis is: ay, 2 fee Probably: © (is This subiect just begs the question of at which public meeting did the commissioners decide to withdraw from the lawsuit. We could find no notice of any commission meetings last week. Was the decision made i ina secret meeting? = | : | statute, preferably in February. 2001.” Sounds election earlier what will the commissioners pretty unambiguous to us. At press time (Sunday) there is an agenda item on Monday’s commission meeting for the commissioners GF ihe commission- ers. The will people Much like Al Gore, the commissioners just don’t know when they are beat. First they run to the courts, and then they ignore the missioners try to throw in the way. Oh yeah, and by the way. Remember when we wondered aloud if the. reason for the big stall was_ because two months wasn’t enough time to get all the “deals” done? Well at the Monday commission meeting there were 17 agenda items in the planning portion (read develop- ~ ers). Gee, 17 items this week — “alone and the commissioners think they need to stay in office another two years? At this rate we'll either look like a «Park City clone 'or> be 4 annexed into: Park City, by clearly contained in the text of the winning initia people. regardless of whatever delays the com- of the is will of the Whatever. The election is over. The will of the people. will ultimately prevail; | » . the time the commissioners tive, “the County Clerk 2 “i jeave' office (kicking and screaming’ all the way). - dd ‘Shall... Select a date for akin iz Oof a Presi lent | BY WALTER R. MEARS AP SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT EU . y this time in the normal B course of events, the vital would be well under UM | | - transition “way —the transition that makes a politician into “Mr. President,” Lo J : ; ee leader accepted even by those Americans who did not want him Winning the title does not instantly — - bestow the standing. Now either Texas Governor George W. Bush or Vice President Al Gore will have to try to earn it in an abbreviated interregnum, against a tide of bitterness and divisiveness hat is1 rising, 1 not ebbing. The transformation from campaign : stridency to solemn presidency is one that normally unfolds over the 10 weeks between the division of elec- tions and the unity. symbolized by | inauguration. A careful step at a time, new presidents prepare for power with overtures to Congress, with courtesy messages to world leaders and, from the wisest winners, gestures to the suasion new administration. . _ For that, there are precedents, seven transitions from one president to his newly elected successor since : inauguration, Democrats said he'd stolen the office. Despite that. “start 10 what he had promised would be his single term, it was not apowerless one. He:--. < ended the Capitol, Democratic leaders in on as well as the Senate that had come to control on his coattails. He and Nancy already had been to the White House,welcomed by President Jimmy Carter, the man he had just defeated. “I think = you'll like the place,” Carter said. only two days before inauguration, Democrats said rule to the Civil War South, and he began the process held looking was declared the winner, Reconstruction, he'd stolen the attic Eight years 280 it was Presigent George Bush's time to swallow defeat — and welcome Bill Clinton to that eventually the White House for a two-hour post- election talk on world trouble spots and pending problems. They called it warm and informative. In this tangled, bitter, overtime ‘struggle to determine whether. Bush led to reform of the corrupt civil service. : When he was campaigning, Bush often said that when he took his pro- grams to Congress, he'd tell them that or Gore will be the 43rd president, that American people. He won't have one, between winning and beginning was to ease away from his campaign promise of a middle class tax cut to shift to an economic program designed to deal rivals they have just defeated. transition is going to be far more diffi- cult than the complicated but customary task of choosing a White House team, nominating a Cabinet, and draft. — eww he came with a message from the nor would Gore should he win the White House by recount in Florida, for | the decisive, and undecided 25 electoral votes that will make a president. ignore changing circum- This also is the period in which But not since 1876 has a _ presidential election been disputed as this one is, and when Rutherford B. Hayes restoring — self to stances. presidents-elect reach out to the people and groups who had most opposed them, Ronald Reagan, for example, to black leaders, promising suspicious minorities that he would the before a by the Republican tial election been disputed as this one is, and when Rutherford B. Hayes was winner, only two in 7 Republicans that there will have to be compromise to get anything done, whoever is president. These are the days and weeks for that to be happening — as when of But not since 1876 has a ee declared bipartisanship Ronald Reagan roamed the corridors duced by a Brookings Institution team on the appointments that shape a new. president's administration. and Congress so narrowly World War II, six of them shifting power from one party to the other. ~ There's even a new guidebook pro- days _ in the White House. That will have to be Jone sith per- B dent ing an agenda for the first chapter br a One Clinton task of the weeks defend their rights “even at the point ofa bayonet.” | ~ It is a time for symbols of the American way of transferring power — of messages to and from foreign lead- ers, as in Soviet Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev's to John FE Kennedy on Nov. 9, 1960, to express hope; hollow, as it turned out, for Cold War steps toward improved relations. Kennedy replied by wire that “a just and lasting peace” would be his major task. All that two years before the brinksmanship of the Cuban missile crisis. The symbolism can be momentous or minor. President-elect Clinton conferred with Reagan in Los Angeles, and came away with both advice and a jar of jelly beans. From such episodes are » presidents made. Elections determine who the new man will be. The gradual process of coming to power determines how he will be seen by the Americans he hasbeen chosen to lead. : In this incredible season, that gathering of the moral authority of the new leader is on hold while the hostilities of _ the campaign are waged on in court- rooms and the counting rooms of Florida. tae TOR'S NOTE _ Walter R. Mears has with deficits he said were worse than reported on Washington and national poli- he'd been led to believe. Clinton said it -tics for The Associated Press for more than 30 years. would be irresponsible for any presi- _ | |