Well, Comrades, it pains me to say that after all these years last night’s City Council meeting proved me wrong and everyone else right. My continued diatribes on the power of incumbency (and its proof over and over again with election outcomes) have been fully embraced by four of the five City Council members who, like the Politburo of the dissolved Soviet Union, act on recommendations of gray and unknown techocrats without question in a mixture of boredom (Comrade Frank) and befuddlement (Comrade Marsha), comfortable in their incumbency with an uninvolved electorate dutifully acting as a loyal Party Congress every two years to retain them in office. Additionally, it appears that, at least with respect to the library issue, The Signal will act as the Politburo’s own Pravda.
People speak of a simmering resentment in the land which the Politburo fuels every time it ignores the wishes of the proletariat who actually show up to a City Council Meeting. But I still believe that electoral resistance is hopeless and I have given up. In less than three years time, when our youngest son graduates from high school, my Nebraska bride and I will decamp to a cooler Southern California clime (Oxnard and Camarillo look particularly attractive). There I will willfully keep myself ignorant of local politics which probably functions no better. It has to be easy since 83% of the registered voters in Santa Clarita can do it!
In the meantime I think the only possible weapon a loyal resistance can use is embarrassment. Since no money exists in local politics the Politburo weakens if they feel they are not beloved by all, or at least all the proletariat that don’t show up to Council Meetings. Therefore, I offer the opposition some thoughts on guerrilla tactics to embrace in the coming years.
Serial “Recalls”
In Santa Clarita it takes about 13,500 signatures to call a recall election. No one will ever obtain these signatures in real life, just like a three library system will never, in real life, be as good as a 52 library system, but my consultations with the City Clerk reveal that it only takes 20 signatures to serve a “Notice of Recall.” So get twenty of your friends to sign a recall petition for a random Politburo member and serve it on them at the next Council Meeting. Wait a month and then serve another member with a recall notice. Set up a card table in front of council meetings to gather recall petition signatures. When the 150 days expire to obtain the signatures, file another recall notice until some type of record is set.
Parliamentary Pranks
Bring ten of your closest friends to a council meeting and sit in the front row with arms folded and totally silent. When your favorite Politburo member starts to speak, at a silent signal everyone jumps up and yells “RESIGN!” and then marches out of the building. (Be sure to have a confederate film this for YouTube.) Come to every meeting and do the same thing, but only once, and to random Politburo members and technocrats to keep them guessing.
Any other ideas for embarrassment from the proletariat?
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