Governance by the Minority

Jim Harbison

Have you ever considered how our local government works? Are you one of those who still believes that the majority rules and that the City Council represents the wishes and needs of the majority of the citizens? It might come as a surprise to you but this is not happening. We are, in fact, governed by a City Council controlled by a very small minority of non-elected individuals. The policies and regulations within the City of Las Cruces that impact you every day are created by special interest groups and a small vocal minority. I offer the following examples.
Red light cameras were installed at several major intersections in the city. Did the majority of Las Crucens demand that they be installed or was it the Council who wanted the revenue? There was no overwhelming citizen petition or initiative in support of them. However, Redflex who provides the cameras was excited about installing them because they receive 50% of all revenue from them. The actual number of people who contacted the Mayor and City Council to request these be installed was probably less than 500. Five hundred people out of a population of nearly 100,000 are less than half of one percent. That means 99.5% of the population had no opinion, were not consulted, or were considered unimportant by the City Council.

The Cell phone ban was enacted because the Mayor read somewhere that texting was 20 times more dangerous than driving under the influence of alcohol. Did Las Cruces have a problem with cellphone use that required this ban be enacted? No, it was the personal passion of the Mayor. Again, there was some public input but I would contend that there were probably less than 500 individuals who actually contacted our City Council to enact such legislation. Here we are again with one-half of one per cent of our population making the rules that impact the other 99.5% of the residents.

Beginning in January we will have forced recycling. Recycling has been proposed before and met with significant opposition from the community. With input from some environmentally concerned citizens the City Council imposed mandatory recycling upon all of us. How many people actually contacted the City government to demand this? It would be doubtful that as many as 3,000 people contacted the Council and demanded this be imposed. Even if this were true, it equates to 97% of the citizenry not expressing an opinion for or against recycling or demanding this action.

Those who own recreational vehicles will be faced with new restrictions on where they can park their RV, how long it can remain on a City street, how long someone can occupy it, etc. From the discussions at the Council meeting it is apparent that none of the Council members has ever owned an RV or understands anything about them. The bottom line is that again less than 100 people or one-tenth of one percent of the population are driving the policies of the City.

The minority is setting the rules. We, who represent the majority, must take the initiative to regain control over our elected officials at all levels and reinforce the principle that the elected officials work for us. They need to respect the values and beliefs of those of the larger group that elected them. Perhaps we should demand polices or legislation that require clear support of the majority of the citizens for any particular initiative, resolution, restriction, or law rather than on the whims of the members of the City Council or the demands of the special interest groups that control them.

Governance by the Minority