RECALL: A view from the sideline

I don’t have a dog in the recall fight any more than the Fernan City Council. I don’t get to vote in Coeur d’Alene city elections because I too live on the edge of Coeur d’Alene. I keep my boat on Ponderay Lake. I probably will not use the Third Street dock any more this year than in the last 10 or 20, which is -0-. So, I guess that gives me as much right as Fernan to express an opinion.

As a more or less disinterested observer, it appears to me local businesses with interests in seeing other people’s money spent are the primary opposition to the recall petition. The “opposers” seem to think that voting in a recall election is not democracy. I believe the opposite is true.

I understand representative government. Our form of government gives eligible voters the right to vote for or against their politicians for good, bad or indifferent reasons and requires us to live with the consequences until the next election. Fortunately, Idaho law does not require the public to wait until the next scheduled election to get rid of criminal or unsatisfactory representatives. That is true even if some fanaticize otherwise. If the City Council were to impose a significant financial or regulatory burden on those against the recall vote, would they still oppose a democratic vote? Rather than attempting to thwart an exercise in democracy which any vote represents, the combatants’ arguments would be better directed to the pros and cons of the recall subject matter itself.

Remember that asking for an election (i.e. a recall vote) is not the same as the vote itself. The “opposers” are jumping the gun in an effort to frustrate democracy.

If the matter should actually go to a vote and if the subjects of the recall are voted out, then the governor might appoint someone. So what — he was democratically elected. The citizens of Coeur d’Alene will get to vote the rascals right back in soon, anyway, if they so wish.

On the few occasions I have had to attend City Council or city agency meetings, I have been dismayed by the indifference exhibited to the general public. That has been true of when or whoever has been sitting on such bodies. Perhaps a recall election will have a salutary affect on elected officials, regardless of the outcome. Maybe that is what some elected officials such as those in Fernan really fear.

G.W. HAIGHT

Coeur d’Alene