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Show ENTERPRISE! '.i PRAGMATIC DOGMATICS i - ? - 4 m by Kent Shearer ' ,'V Nobody has ever accused the Salt Lake City commissioners of undue intelligence. On the other hand, everybody should acknowledge those worthies to be shrewd. That shrewdness manifests itself in the tactics by which they have set about to raise city residents property taxes by over ten percent from 23.5 mills to , ; 26 mills. The Commission could incease the taxes by itself. There is no legal requirement for a public referendum. But the city fathers have decreed that an election there will be held on Dec. 15 at a taxpayer cost of $25,000. Two theories can be embraced as to why the referendum although not necessary at law, One is that City has been called. Hall, statesmanlike, is unwilling to impose further taxation absent popular assent. The e other is that Wilson, Mayor-in-faPhillips, and their cronies cynically calcu 'i i 1 ; 4 referendum. is a neat date on which to far assure the minimum possible voter turn-ou- t, less even than the miserable 35 participation that occurred on Nov. 8. On a Wednesday at the height of the Christmas season, it may be Second, Dec. two-fol- 14 assured that few other than city employees told to vote for more taxes will show at the polls. The city fathers will have their tax hike, and the public (most of which will not have known of the election) will get the blame, if Such was not the will of the City Hall gang. Rather, wc get a brand new expense for a Dec. 14 special election. Why? The answer likely is any. adds up to a city commission maneuver which is shrewd, pragmatic, and admirable in its own way. Admirable that is, unless you are an already overburdened All of w hich d. First, to have the issue in the Nov. 8 general election might have embarrassed incumbent Commissioner Glen Greener, who ct Mayor-in-nam- was running therein (successfully as it turned out) for reelcction. He could hot very well have told the voters, as he did, of his deep-seate- d dislike of the property tax had he been then on record as asking those same voters to approve its ten percent plus augmentation. How much more convenient, and cozy, to wait, as the Commission did, until Nov. 15 a full week after Greeners victory to call for the Dec. 14 late to pass to the public the buck for the tax hike theyve plotted. Objective facts point to cynicism, not statesmanship. By letter postmarked Aug. 18. Wilson first floated a trial balloon for the increased mill levy. He indicated that there was an option to put a measure on the Ballot which would seek The only city elections voter approval ... then regularly scheduled were the Oct. 11 primary and the Nov. 8 general. It might have been an undue rush to prepare the proposal for the primary. There was, however, ample opportunity to shape it for inclusion on the general election ballot. $50,000 was expended for the latter, and a little additional cost the public could have voted the tax hike up or down then and there. The December 1 4 election t theQ 9 $ ; I pop J A iJ A RSfeSOU WHO PREFERS , AUP - WHAT PO Wfs WHATS 50M50U6 OF TH6 OPPOSITE SEX AS A BEST FRIEUR S0H63WE OF THE SAME SEX AS A W6 R- Wfr oms CHOOSES w frieup. mruppou th unek nn. Mwwwftn mSDP? by Parker M. Nielson consolidation arc apparently Advocates of trying to apply the wisdom concerning representative government of Madison and Hamilton. Their thesis was that because the public affairs of the Union arc spread through a very extensive region, and arc extremely diversified by the local affairs connected with them. regional representatives should be selected and that a "knowledge (of local affairs would then) be brought by the representatives of every part of the empire." have now proposed Proponents of a unified county government a council made up of regional representatives of designated areas within greater Salt Lake valley. as it is within the Opposing that concept, embodied but Constitution, may seem somewhat like rejecting apple pie, of its application in this instance misconceives the purpose city-coun- LU ; ! K JS, .. o o $mr$l im Misconceptions In local government cc - mwp m pick SOHEOOE who PwERS THE SAME FFRSOO As A AUP A BEST oQ. am? SITE SEX AS A UHIB R- ty regional representation. commerA city, by definition, is an integrated financial or cial district. Considerations such as common garbage disposal and common public safety are problems, common water supply, y needs which have prompted the movement for consolidation. If the city and the county did not have common would not be needs, common goals and common interests there the homogeneity necessary to establish a common government which is evident in in the first instance. That homogeneity, of this instance, is the very antithesis of the diversification interest that would justify regional representation, as contem city-count- plated by Hamilton and Madison. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that residents of Magna, for example, do not share the concerns of the entire valley. Both the city and the county in fact embrace many without evidence of regional jealousies which are the implicit assumption of advocates of regional representation. The distinction is not an academic one. Imposing regional representation in situations where it is not called for may be productive of bad government. While Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County have each been beneficiaries of good leadership from time to time, it is nevertheless true that there arc far too few qualified persons available for local government. There is no reason to assume that those qualified persons will be uniformly distributed over upwards of a dozen arbitrary regions of the county, which is what some consolidation plans propose. Nor is there any reason why residents of, for example, the east bench should not elect a if they so superior administrator from Granger, or desire. Those qualified persons willing to assume city offices just might all be resident in a single section of the valley, and wc should not be saddled with inferior elected officials in the interest of what is really a cosmetic effect. Hamilton and Madison in fact declared that the general affairs of the State.. .lie within a small compass, are not very diversified, and occupy much of the attention and conversation of every class of people," and thereby recognized that regional representation was not well suited to local government. The failure of proposals of revision of local government to recognize that distinction seems a prescription for mediocrity. sub-unit- s, vice-vers- a, |