Rapid City’s Alligator Council

Having lived in Louisiana for some eleven years, I became acquainted with alligators and they are pretty much all mouth and no ears. They also are stealthy, foul-tempered and want to dominate their world. Turns out that is a fair description of some Rapid City Council members.

 

On Tuesday, the Rapid City Council voted 6-4 to extend their terms of office. The six “aldergators” that voted in favor of this power trip (Gary Brown, Charity Doyle, Ritchie Nordstrom, Dave Davis, Jerry Wright and Bonny Petersen) did so despite having been told by the people of Rapid City to the contrary. But remember, they don’t have ears.

 

They do, however, have mouths.

 

One of the mouths said:

“If you just look at the basic increase in focus and productivity with no election on the horizon and the newness factor taken out, I think we could actually do something good.”

 

Well I would hope you could do something good. How about you do what you said you would do when you asked for the peoples’ votes? How about you listen to the people of your ward when they tell you what they think on an issue? How about you stand your ground for the people and don’t cave to the interests of other aldermen who are unabashedly seeking their personal political march to the mayor’s chair?

 

Term length decisions are properly decided by the people, not politicians. It is the primary avenue for the people to speak about how a legislator is representing them. 

 

Despite the political trickery of scheduling “town hall” meetings on this topic at various locations on the same day to dilute and disperse opposition, the people spoke clearly that this is a decision to be made by the people as a ballot question.

 

But alligators have no ears.  

 

***Ed Randazzo, is a nationally syndicated author. He has been a conservative activist and consultant for over 30 years and is currently the Chief News Editor of Life and Liberty Media***