OCR Text |
Show An Open Letter to the Voters of Moab City and Grand County The opponents of consolidation would have us believe that the proposed consolidation plan is some sort of a communist plot designed to destroy our rights as citizens, a plot designed by some mysterious persons bent on 5 destroying the foundations of our freedom. They would j f lead us to believe that portions of the consolidation plan ' i . are unconstitutional in that they take away our fCf constitutional rights. Neither of these allegations could be ' further from the truth, the consolidation plan was not J initiated by outsiders, but it was initiated, studied and , proposed by a group of local citizens acting pursuant to j the authority granted by our State Legislature, they are 1 if not communists or CIA agents sent here by Washington 1 to usurp our freedoms, they are local citizens just like f 1 yourselves who have only one goal in mind and that is to 1 make Moab-Grand a better place to live, by establishing a .J more efficient more responsive local government that would better serve the needs of the people. The idea that ; i portions ' or sections of the consolidation plan are J unconstitutional is preposterous, there is nothing new or j J untried in the. consolidation plan. The consolidation plan does not grant local government officials any new powers J that local government officials do not have elsewhere. The ! I plan was adopted from and taken from existing local government charters that have long been in existence and have been found to function well. Every single provision J ' of the plan has been thoroughly reviewed by the attorney for the Municipal League and by the Attorney General's Office for constitutionality, and the Constitution of the J United States and the Constitution of the State of Utah I I remain very much intact to protect against any usurpation of Constitutional rights by local officials. The opponents of consolidation would lead us to believe that a J City-County Manager would be some sort of unelected , dictator who would ignore the wishes and the desires of t the people, but again nothing could be further from the J truth, because the .manager would be merely an appointed administrator without any tenure whatsoever J who could be fired at will by a simple majority vote of the J Council. This is the most responsive form of government i of all because if he institutes or adopts policies that are disfavored by any substantial portion of the electorate he i must immediately and continually sell such policies to a majority of five representatives of the people or lose his job. He is not in a position to continue policies that are i disfavored by a majority of the electorate until the next election as would be possible under the present form of government. The opponents of consolidastion would t further have us believe that it is somehow unpatriotic or '. un-American to vote for a change in our local government, J but democracy if it is to remain viable and meet the needs j of a more mobile, more urban society must be a growing t thing capable of changing to meet the needs of a changing ! society. We have the opportunity to carve for ourselves a unique place in the history of the State of Utah next Tuesday. Let's be big enough to rise to the occasion. Let's f not be scared by the scare tactics or fooled by the u demogogery of the opposition. Whatever the outcome of ,f the election next Tuesday the people who have devoted :J their time and energies to the consolidation plan will not J be unhappy or in any way disappointed, for we realize that it is not our perrogative to choose the local form of ) government. That right is reserved to the people through J their ballots. Our concern is not whether the people opt for a change or opt for the present form of government but j only that the plan be fairly represented to the electorate without distortions or misrepresentations so that they might have the opportunity to make an intelligent choice. t4 We wish to take this last and final opportunity to urge everyone to get out and vote, whatever your preference. . CITIZENS FOR CONSOLIDATION (Paid Political Adv., by Keith Peterson, Dee Tranter, Bill i McDougald, Marj Tomsic, D. L. Taylor, Connie Caouette ! and Dixie Barker) j . " II |