Yeah, I was skimming and misread that part. The compensation for the elected duties is specified in the state law as being set by ordinance and it's the compensation for other employment with the township that is set by the auditors.
"EXACTLY! That's a whole pizza and a couple beers EVERY WEEK! And all they have to do is show up to a multi-hour meeting every single week and risk some dumbass making a big deal to the whole damn world about them not providing a bible to give an oath over! These corrupt bastards! I have to work for like 10 minutes for those benefits every week! These corrupt bastards!!1!" - HN tonight
You posted over 50 flamewar comments in this thread. That's egregious, and we ban accounts that behave this way. I'm not going to ban you right now, but please don't do it again.
We want curious conversation here. When you get to the point of fulminating about what "HN" has been saying, or you feel "HN" has been saying, the thread has left the path of curiosity a long time ago, and is well into the brush. We don't want that here.
I'm not saying your views are wrong (I have no idea what they are, and no idea what the situation is). But if your views are correct, this is the worst way to advocate for them, because it discredits them. No more of this, please.
Well, if their pilfering town funds by 'employing' the surpivisors brother-in-law's landscaping company for 8x the normal cost...
I'm not saying that's the case, it's a made up scenario, but it's exactly how underpaid public servants "make up the difference", and it's why you need an auditor. The hired CPA wouldn't see anything wrong.
$1.66mm seems like a lot for a traffic signal at an intersection. I’m sure an auditor could find a at least a few interesting items to dig in to and validate.
Good thing that the township retained an actual CPA, then. It'd be sketch as hell if a fucking sci-fi author slash real estate agent was in charge of an audit.
Yes we all know that auditing firms are never thoroughly corrupt/incompetent, nobody could have foreseen Enron or Lehman Brothers (or loads of smaller scale cases)...
Oh come on. Nobody said it never happens, but do you have any reason to suspect Maher Dussel is corrupt or incompetent? Do you have any reason to believe this random guy is as qualified as a team of CPAs to audit public sector books?
He's probably not more qualified, but independent oversight of public expenditures serves a valuable purpose. A hired accountant has no incentive to point out that it might be wasteful or unnecessary to spend Y money on a thing X as long as everything is done by the book.
With government, the FIRST place you look are benefits to employees.
In this case, they are paying $570,906 in 2022 in Pension benefits for 4 active employees. Now they certainly aren't paying $142,726.50 to each active employee so that means they have a string of retired workers that they're paying a good amount of money for.
An appropriate thing for an auditor to do is to then research how those employees earned their benefits. Did they "buy 15 years of tenure" for $3,200 thereby increasing their yearly benefit $40,000 per year? Did they "work" 120 hours per week of overtime in their last year to jack up their final year salary? These are real examples from a town near me.
None of these things are illegal and won't necessarily be flagged by a CPA who is being paid by the people giving or receiving these benefits. But they sure stand out to taxpayers who are footing the bill!
Think about it - all a CPA will do is check to make sure a supervisor signed off that someone worked 120 hours of overtime. They aren't going to investigate how that is even possible or likely.
wait wait. You're saying they do this thankless job for the pure joy of civic duty? They get nothing out of their position? And so... because they're so pure and selfless, it's fine if they never seat a duly elected auditor? What?
No. I'm saying that they will definitely seat the auditor and that the elected auditor is being a dick instead of being a reasonable person about his situation and the fact that his interlocutors are mostly just confused.
Let’s also not forget that Person C does not seem to know anything themselves about the rules and procedures.
They just showed up at the next meeting hoping everyone had everything figured out for them.
I find the entire attitude here extremely interesting, because it’s most likely a repudiation of their preconceived ideas. The idea that there is this singular powerful “establishment” that has all the power and works hard to keep outsiders from breaking up their way of doing things.
What this episode really shows is that government in the US is singularly disorganized, driven by largely a whole bunch of self interested individuals, who are largely winging it as they go along.
If indeed it was the “establishment” that was so worried about this auditor position, why would they not put up a better fight to win the election in the first place? The actual winner seems surprised they won, which indicates they didn’t put much effort in campaigning. The “establishment” surely has enough money to run a campaign in a tiny town to win the election?
Further, if the “establishment” was so scared of this individual and so powerful, why would they do something silly like basically say something that is contrary to the law over email? They’d probably be better off just ignoring him and/or having an attorney come up with a legally plausible communication that would have conveyed that he isn’t likely to be seated without doing so in a manner that is apparently contrary to the clear law.
> They just showed up at the next meeting hoping everyone had everything figured out for them.
So what? He turned up, and they said they'd swear him in, then sent a letter saying they wouldn't. If the first auditor was not needed, why not mention that at the meeting?
It's also not clear the "rules and procedures" are being followed here - it appears normal to swear in Auditors after their election, is it unreasonable to expect that process to be figured out beforehand?
I've served on councils like this before and if anything unexpected comes up, the default answer is always going to be "uhh we're not sure but we'll address it at the next meeting." Sometimes someone may know the answer but more often than not the manager or solicitor will get the answer before the next caucus meeting and they'll formulate the actual response then.
They didn't defer addressing the issue, they said they'd swear him in. Also, since they had been operating without an elected auditor since the last time they elected one, did no one there know this?
> and they'll formulate the actual response then
How long should he wait until he can officially conclude he's being given the run-around?
So, it's okay that they refuse to swear in the elected auditors because you think the position is unimportant? In what other circumstances do you think it's okay for government entities to ignore the law?
The auditors have duties beside auditing, and the law[1] explicitly say they "shall perform the other duties of the office" even if an accountant has been appointed. There is clearly a reason the town government dosen't want anyone to preform one or more of these other duties.
> The supervisors assured me that I would be able to swear in at either the next meeting
> three days after that meeting, I received an email from the township manager to the effect of, "sorry, we hired a CPA to do that job and we have no need for elected auditors to oversee the township."
Is seems these town meetings are roughly 3 weeks apart, and he has contacted various people who have not returned his call. The previous auditor (elected) describes as being given a "runaround" also.
So yes, they didn't refuse, they just ghosted his attempts to resolve the issue. What's the big difference? As long as they stay silent, they technically didn't refuse? At what point can you say they are acting in bad-faith?
Noted. I've never gotten involved in local politics but friends who have seem to have nothing but stories of batshit crazies coming out of the woodwork for the past two years. So this is what that looks like? But giving him the benefit of the doubt that he means to do the job, how is he supposed to request the books for an audit if the council won't acknowledge his position?
I can assure you "the past two years" are irrelevant, I've been involved with politics at various levels since 2004 and local politics are almost exclusively the domain of people unqualified and uninterested in anything else.
That doesn't even approach answering my question. You're just saying he did things wrong, which is not what I was asking about: why you said he'd 'definitely' be seated.
> When an accountant or firm is appointed under subsection (a) or (b), the board of auditors shall not audit, settle or adjust the accounts audited by the appointee but shall perform the other duties of the office.
If you can't audit any accounts then what would the "other duties of the office" be for a board of auditors?
> The primary duties and functions of the Board of Auditors include:
>
> - Acting as a fiscal watchdog for the citizens of the township
> - Auditing, settling, and adjusting the accounts of all elected or appointed officials who received or disbursed funds during the immediate preceding calendar year
> - Setting salaries for supervisors who are employed by the township
> - Auditing records of the local district justice, if deemed appropriate
> - Filing the annual report for the township, unless the Board of Supervisors contracts an outside accounting firm per the code. (Nevertheless, in some townships auditors work together very closely with the township staff to insure that all township funds are properly expended and accounted for.)
> - Hearing cases involving financial loss to the township as caused by any elected or appointed official, who have acted in a violation of law or beyond the scope of their office
There are a few things here the supervisors might not want an outsider to look into.
He and the other elected auditor should make that oath in front of the notary public and then make the township supervisors pay out their own pocket for the elections they held knowing they would ignore the outcome.
There's an enormous chance none of them are compensated. The township is in the middle of rural PA and has a population of like 17K. I would be astounded if any of the supervisors are compensated.
Well, you'd have to work out how much the pay is on an hourly basis. It doesn't sound like a role that consists of nothing but collecting a stipend.
But more broadly, there's an active debate over whether governmental posts should either (a) pay enough that someone could live off of one; or (b) require the person holding the post to have independent means. This is clearly on the (b) side, often felt to exclude many social classes from being able to hold a post in the government. (And sometimes invoked as a reason to overlook corruption by the officeholder - "how else are they supposed to support themselves?")
This is blatantly false - if you work second or third shift, you cannot hold these titles.
Does that make any e.g. factory worker ineligible for titles? You might say to yourself 'but you don't want factory workers im office' - and then you'd be saying that some classes are worth more than others, that these are 'second class' citizens in the eyes of the law.
And that would be a pretty disgusting viewpoint.
If you can hold a job or make money, perhaps you should make nothing from the position, otherwise there should probably be a living wage stipulation.
The St Louis Fed website also shows census.gov as the source. Perhaps one statistic is including people who do not work such as old people and the other is not?
Your tone and attitude are extremely antagonistic, and are not welcome here on HN.
HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) specifically state "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."
I suggest reading and commenting appropriately, in which case you're far more likely to receive thoughtful replies to your comments.
It's not in the middle of rural PA, it's suburbs of the state capital. The population is low because the Carlisle Pike shopping district runs through most of it. Source: I grew up there.
They are compensated. I was also on a council at one point, not even 30 minutes from Silver Spring, with a population of less than 3,000. I had 802 constituents. We were paid $50/mo., which calculated out to about $3/hour with the lengths of the various meetings.
It says they have no supervisor _working for the township_. They do have at least two supervisors that were just sworn in for 6 years according to the meeting agenda posted before. I guess that means they are fulfilling their duties uncompensated and thus no compensation needs to be determined.
> I loved the part of the thread where, instead of going on a rant, he simply replied to the email acknowledging that he wasn't needed for most of his job but still wanted to be sworn in at the next meeting. /s
...yes?
If your job scope is reduced, you still have to go through onboarding. Is that not obvious?
Unless you're objecting to 'next', because it should only take them a couple minutes and there's no reason to delay.
Yeah when my job scope is reduced I normally go on a twitter rant about The Establishment instead of, idk, asking for clarification and asserting the part of the job I still want to do.
Or they don't want an auditor to see how much the supervisors brother-in-law landscaping company gets for mowing the park lawns.
That's why you need an auditor, hired CPA's will only verify that the checks were indeed sent to the intended party, not that they are used appropriately.
Don't be naive that these things don't happen, they do.
The parent probably used ’mayor’ in the general sense. Different types of administrative subdivisions have different names for their political leaders depending on where they are in the world, and nobody could possibly be expected to keep track of them all. Even if they are not called mayors in this exact case you full well knew what the parent meant.
Compare the quality of people running for low-paid local political office to... basically any other vocation. It's a widely echoed sentiment because it is, more often than not, true.
The candidate that wins the most votes in a democratic election shall get the office. That principle should not be up for debate, and It's absolutely terrifying how many people are rejecting democracy in this country right now. It's the system we have for nonviolent transfer of power, and if we let those in power just ignore the results of election, we could find we have no peaceful mechanisms for replacing elected officials.
I think it's unquestionably better to just accept the results of the vote, regardless of what you think about the candidate.
Edit: it looks like all your comments in the past year have been quite against the intended spirit of the site. We ban accounts that do that. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please stop doing that, we'd appreciate it.
Except this place has a better excuse in that they are a township of ~9k people where the board of supervisors get paid 3k a year (read: are not full time). I could totally imagine the part time small town government not really knowing how things should work and flying by the seat of their pants like this.
Captain Obvious checking in, it's more like they really don't want an independent auditor. People focusing on their compensation are not looking deep enough, there's probably some preferred vendor or other grifting going on that leads back to a family member.
Maybe, maybe not. It is pretty wild that everyone assumes some financial conspiracy. I think it is at least as likely they just don't want random wackadoos adding to the bureaucracy.
Elected positions might be wackadoo but they’re not random. Their refusal to seat a duly elected candidate for office is not valid legally and it’s not valid as a principled rejection of governing structure they object to. They could (however undemocratically) try to eliminate the role. But they can’t just ignore the election because it doesn’t suit them, without scrutiny.
When I was in my early 20s, I lived in a shared house with some other early 20-somethings. They were all off the beaten in some way, but more or less had their shit together. When I moved in, I certainly did not have my shit together. And I had never lived with other young adults who did.
I had been in the bad habit of leaving my dirty dishes in the sink, as had all of my former cohabitants. But these new roommates did not operate this way. One of them confronted me about it. I apologized, cleaned up my shit, and… repeated the whole behavior.
Again I was confronted. I apologized again, and next came the more important confrontation (paraphrasing, no way I could recall the exact wording): we already talked about this, you know what the expectation is, you just didn’t respect that. Well, that was true. It stung, and maybe it was a bit blunt, but it was inescapably true.
I didn’t even intend to leave my responsibilities for other people to take care of. But I was definitely, knowingly, leaving a mess they’d have to work around. Because I was prioritizing my own time allocation without regard for others.
Anyway, how all of that’s relevant: this township has done this before. It’s implausible that they’re ignorant of it, the second time. Especially as a cohort, where some will have better recall and a stronger inclination to improve than others. That leaves only the possibility that their motive falls within the range of motives for knowingly disregarding an election result, again as a cohort. Maybe I lack imagination, but I think the only reasonable conclusion is corruption.
my accunt is over a year old with over 5K karma, almost all of which is comment karma.
Name one supervisor or manager of this township whose background explains my post history. There's a lot there, including some SQL code earlier today if I remember and probably a bunch of stuff about the field in which I have a PhD if you dig long enough.
So. Anyways. The township supervisor/admin who can pass coding interview questions and has a phd in a math-heavy field. What's their name again? Go ahead. I'm waiting.
Could it be possible that I have a genuine distaste for conspiratorial nutbags who turn local government into bored single rural white dude version of the instagram influencer game?
On the other hand you've complained about this no less than 3 times in different threads. why? How is an obvious troll account relevant to other posters issues with your own behaviour? This feels like what-about-im, but the difference is it's pretty clear that the other guy isn't being tolerated.
> in case someone decides to "stalk me" and "beat my face in"
If you are just as abrasive in real life as in this thread I can believe it.
It’s not that I don’t understand the frustration, but at this point it’s a bit past the point of being reasonable.
I imagine they’ll get it sorted through swearing in twitter guy and then ignoring him as much as possible for the next 6 years, after which they’ll make sure to get someone one of their friends to run.
The point of a stable and recognizable pseudonym is not to garner personal or professional benefits it’s to facilitate ongoing conversation. You’ve antisocially opted out of that. No one cares to read a throwaway’s post history.
I do. In small towns like this, it's not really money. They tend to just favor people they know. It's more bias or conservatism than corruption. Things are more comfortable when you're dealing with people you know. Sure people get favors and side business and such but in total, it doesn't really add up to a whole lot.
Did they ghost him or did he ghost them first? From what I can tell he had absolutely no idea about or even contact with the people he was supposed to audit/work with until long after the election had taken place.
So he turns up one random day to do his job and is surprised that he isn't on the agenda. I repeat, he never even talked to these guys after his election, never checked in with them to even properly organize things. Instead he just assumed "they would know".
> and undermine your elected auditors.
Given how much he just assumed will happen and failed to properly plan and ensure will happen he is doing quite a good job at helping them with it. And after all that his idea of fixing things is to write a 20+ tweet complaint on twitter. If these people are as corrupt as some here think they must love that guy, they couldn't have found a more superficial incompetent guy for the job if they tried.
I would rather say be proactive and communicate, preferably in a professional manner. Walking around deliberately unaware with blindfolds on by "assuming" everything is more a skill I would expect from the "go along to get along" crowd, which is why I mean that corrupt people could hardly find a better drop in replacement for him. A passive and ignorant auditor that has to be spoon fed everything is hardly going to uncover any relevant corruption.
For one thing you’re saying it’s not corruption. Nepotism and corruption don’t require ulterior motives. I do find your comment is excusing and normalizing “favoring people you know”.
I’m sure it happens, probably in my locality as well. That doesn’t mean it’s acceptable or that it shouldn’t be scandalized. The big fishies in the small ponds apparently need to be reminded of the standards they’re held to from time to time.
It's not corruption unless there is intent to defraud. That is not the case. As a formerly elected official in a small town the issue was simply that we didn't have the resources. We were all basically volunteer as our pay was a few hundred a year. Elections were ran as simply as they could be as the most we could put in was an hour or two per week. Running the meetings alone were a huge hassle. There was an overwhelming sense of just sticking to the status quo as that was the simplest thing to do.
From the outside, we certainly had plenty of folks calling us corrupt for not always getting 3 closed bids on every project or paying Joe under the table for cutting grass. Were these true allegations? Yes, but it wasn't corruption. What do you do when the grass needs to be cut because if it's not, we'll get rats in the town hall and no one responds to you calls? You call Joe who cut just your personal grass the other day and ask him to please just get it done asap because no one has time. This isn't done because we're trying to get a favor, we just needed it done quickly and reliably.
Do you also think it’s not discrimination if it’s because you just can’t afford to take a shot with a non-white or woman, if your experience tells you that white men are easier to deal with?
After all, there’s no ulterior motives in racial or sexual bias when it comes to hiring either, right?
Of course it’s easier and feels better to let the scant public funds go to people you know. That doesn’t mean it’s not corruption.
> This isn't done because we're trying to get a favor, we just needed it done quickly and reliably.
You still seem hung up on that there needs to be some form of quid-pro-quo or personal gain going on to count. That is not the case.
And well, there’s a clear difference in scale between asking Joe to cut the grass and not proactively putting the offer out (which still counts but is what it is) vs actively denying authority (however little) of your own publicly elected auditors for several years.
> From the outside, we certainly had plenty of folks calling us corrupt for not always getting 3 closed bids on every project or paying Joe under the table for cutting grass. Were these true allegations? Yes, but it wasn't corruption.
You are quite literally admitting to corruption. You’re justifying it for a common good, which… is emotionally understandable but also basically how well-meaning people justify interacting with every level or scale of corruption.
Only in very specific contexts, and usually when money is involved. Officials are allowed all kinds of biases. They can run together and endorse each other.
Yeah, it's really powered by favors, in my experience. This doesn't have to be an inherently bad thing in small communities, as it gets things done, but it's obviously unfair to outsiders.
Sort of, yeah. It’s like the moms in the PTA going on a power trip and increasing the per parent budget from $5 to $6 dollars for the year, then later realizing the money was all spent on snacks for their meetings.
I would be more happy if it was... when it is not followed exactly the execution of the law gets to pick favourites on who and when they decided to enact the laws.
When laws are followed, people tend to be much more careful on the laws they write.
Totally agree. The question is then what it means to deal with them. In a way, they are already dealing with them by saying there is nothing for you to do an your services are not needed.
The part that was missing from the twitter thread is a reply stating the scope of the auditor role not covered by the CPA, and an affirmation that they seek to carry out this duty.
I guess my take comes down to Hanlon's razor: never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity. The council doesn't know what he wants to do after election and he didn't spell it out for them. It seems that they want to be (1) publicly sworn in and (2) change township processes somehow so that they can be a more effective community watchdog.
Why is it pretty wild? There are tons of scammers, crooks, etc., this stuff is common place, not abnormal.
Humans tend towards greed and lining their own pockets, just look at any dysfunctional government that has ever existed. I would not be surprised that half the politicians in office in thw US are taking bribes or dealing under the table. There are numerous public examples, you can guess that its only the tip of the iceberg.
The city has an independent auditor. It's a mid-sized firm in a sizable metro with a bunch of CPAs. Literally no incentive to lie on an audit of a tiny township with a miniscule budget.
The accounting firm isn't going to check if the funds were spent on a sprayer. They are at most going to check if there's an invoice that goes along with the line item.
Typically how corruption at small scale like this works is:
1) Person A has a budget of $5000 to buy some equipment
2) The equipment costs $2000
3) Person B sells them the equipment, but puts $5000 on the invoice
4) Person B then gives $1500 to person A and keeps $1500 for themselves.
There's obviously no record of the last transaction, and there's no way an accounting firm is going to uncover it. They just make sure the invoices are correct. They aren't going to verify that the sprayer they got is indeed a $5000 sprayer.
Going for an excessively above-market-price model is waste of taxpayer money. If there have been specific requirements why the standard model would not be sufficient, these exceptions should have been documented.
You're being intentionally obtuse here. You didn't prove anywhere that this was the market price, on the contrary, there are good reasons to believe it wasn't.
Traditional way corruption works in my country is exactly that: the people who purchase goods using public money make a deal with the vendors, behind close doors: "I'll buy directly from you, and you can inflate your prices, but you kick back 25% to me". So the seller doubles the price, knowing they have no competition, pays 25% in kickbacks, keeps a nice markup (still sold the item 50% more expensive than they would otherwise). An accountant would find absolutely no fault anywhere: there's purchase orders, invoices, receipts, everything matches. They have no idea how much sprayers cost or how much a specific model should cost! An auditor, on the other hand, could ask exactly these sorts of questions (why was this a direct acquisition and not a public auction? what was the benefit of selecting this vendor? why can I find this model available at 1/10th of the price at a reputable retailer?)
[edit] Look, I actually agree with your take (what this auditor is doing is sketchy, he is certainly not taking on "the establishment" with his saga, his motives look dubious). But that doesn't make the supervisors innocent. He can be shady, supervisors can be shady - these things are not mutually exclusive. For the life of me I don't understand why you defend the supervisors, contradicting yourself in the process[+] instead of focusing on your actual valid point. Yeah, he should get his auditor position; no, he's not fighting the establishment, he's just trying to gain popularity by creating outrage.
[+] first say "find me one suspicious line item" then after several are found, you change the subject or try to pedal theoretically-possible-but-highly-improbable theories ("we can't be 100% certain the price was inflated! What if you found a similar thing at 1/10th of a price, surely that tiny town needed a premium sprayer that had to be very expensive").
"Interfund transfers": almost 50% increase to $1.3million; elaborated on nowhere else in the budget as far as I can tell
Now I'm not saying there definitely is foul play here (realistically, more likely than not there isn't), but that's why the auditor position exists - to find out
The likes on Enron, Worldcom and Bear Stearns all had "independent" audits.
Everyone knows auditors only have the capacity to look at a small sample of records; and that difficult, demanding auditors don't get appointed next year.
I can't imagine anyone reading this story and thinking, "Oh, this must just be a series of unfortunate accidents by naïve supervisors."
"Not knowing how things work" is only an excuse up until someone explains to they, "I was elected, here is the law," and they deliberately refuse to acknowledge it
(The reason people run for these obscure, low-paying jobs is so they can get rich on the taxpayers' dime - so they can rezone and procure and otherwise redirect money and influence to their own interests. No one does it as a fun hobby.)
And if that friend Josh then sometimes pays them 10% in kickbacks, can you blame them for taking it? They are putting so much work in for so little, after all.
That they are very keen on not having a board of auditors because there is something they think those auditors could do they don't want done. For instance, uncover corruption.
I don't think it's reasonable to believe they are ignoring the law just because they are lazy or think the accounting firm makes the auditors unnecessary. If they didn't care, they would just swear in auditors and let them preform their other duties as the law requires.
This is why the federal government is important. People talk about the "swamp in DC" not realizing how swampy it is in their local courthouses, and would be a lot swampier without the federal government looking over it.
Local politics is also absurdly boring which, I would argue, is why nobody pays attention. It's such an inconvenience to participate in the local political process because we're so used to the theatre that is Federal politics. I mean honestly, can we all name the members of our city council, our mayor, etc.?
Our culture is so addicted to stimulation that we just don't want to spend time on something as boring and banal as a city council meeting.
With all due respect—I have something which will blow your mind!
The city of Santa Monica broadcasts city council meetings. And both the items being adjudicated and the members from the public stepping up to the mic, are every bit as colorful as the brightest Hollywood blockbusters. I listened for years after leaving LA… KCRW Thursday evenings, grab some popcorn and enjoy!!
My town also broadcasts their meetings, and they're pretty darn tough to actually watch and focus on. Not that I expect my public officials to entertain me or cater to my interests, but it's not a particularly engaging format for a variety of reasons.
Yeah and it's cured me of any idea of ever running for one of those offices. No way could I handle sitting in every one of those meetings for several years.
With all due respect (seriously) - you're making the problem worse. The problem is national politics sucks all the attention in the political arena away from
local politics. Suggesting that people add yet another competing attention grab that occupies not only the politics but the local politics itch is just another push away from listening to what city hall is doing in their town.
There's also the fact that if Santa Monica's politics are that interesting, then people are more likely to be disappointed with how boring their local
politics are.
> I mean honestly, can we all name the members of our city council, our mayor, etc.
Of course I can. Off the top of my head:
City Council:
Lisa Herbold - neighborhood
Teresa Mosqueda - at large
Sara Nelson - at large, newly elected
Mayor:
Bruce Harrell - newly elected, replaced Jenny Durkan after one term. Was previously on the city council for 13 (?) years.
City Attorney:
Ann Davison - newly elected, replaced Pete Holmes who failed to advance through the primary after 12 years.
County Executive:
Dow Constantine - narrowly re-elected. Recently granted additional power to appoint the county sheriff.
These are the elected positions I vote on. I am also aware of appointed positions like parks, police, and city transit. I’m aware of the the parts of the council I don’t vote for.
I’m also aware of policy. Hazard pay for grocery workers. Attempting to stop catalytic converter theft. Fixing the bridge. Mask mandates. Public transit expansion. Defunding police.
I get a lot of my coverage of these events from the hyperlocal blog that covers my neighborhood. I have their number saved to text reports when I see them. They publish coverage of most local government meetings. I visit that site as often as HN.
This reminds me of a strategy I once heard on how to assign weights to people's votes according to their knowledge. You want to assign a high weight to those with relevant knowledge and low weight to those with little relevant knowledge.
So how do you know who has good relevant knowledge? Rather than just collecting the response to a question: "How many beans do you think are in this jar?" you also ask the _meta_ question: "What do you think will be the average response to the first question above?" For those who perform well on question 2, you assign higher weight to their answers on question 1.
If you just average all the answers to question 1, you are likely to get a close approximation to the true number of beans in the jar. But if you assign weights according to performance on question 2, you can get an even closer approximation to the true answer.
I may have gotten some details wrong, but the idea is that if you are aware of your peers' level of knowledge about a topic, then you are likely to be knowledgeable about the topic yourself.
Sure or people could just participate locally instead of being apathetic trolls on the internet. You get back what you put in. Nobody owes you anything. Do the work.
I could care about them if they were people I knew. For the most part I’m happy to leave the running of my city to the people interested in doing the job (with all the perks and mind numbing boringness it brings).
I don’t know the names but port of Seattle has two new representatives. They are the first minority-only representatives for the port. This is after a multi-year renovation of terminal 5 which is just now seeing new businesses from MSC.
That assumes you even live in a city. I have no idea who our town manager or whoever sits on the various boards of our 7K person town are. And, yeah, there's no hyperlocal blog. Maybe whatever filers through NextDoor and Facebook.
Then start one. My hyperlocal blog is sponsored by local businesses and promotes events like art walk where people walk around the local shops and purchase or view art created by local artists. If your community sucks it’s because of the people, not the government.
That's because local politics is dedicated mostly to establishing inane bureaucratic blockers for policies that would benefit everyone except the existing homeowners in the city.
My city council recently spent until 1am debating zoning regulations for California's new ADU law instead of doing the sane thing and just letting people build ADUs.
It's sad how true this is. What makes this particularly challenging is that most people that have the resources to seriously run for office have assets like real estate, which has a major impact on the decisions that you're talking about.
It takes less money than ever to run for office. What they do not have is the network and connections, nor are most of the public engaged. The segment of the public that is engaged and votes in the primaries for local elections tend to be business, real estate, and home owners.
our city council tries to do some stuff occasionally - but usually just ends up with the state legislature (90+ other counties) deciding they know best for our city.
Austin, TX by chance? We have some pretty infamous examples of that here. One of the sillier ones was the ban on plastic grocery bags that was overturned by the state legislature.
And also local and even to state politics are incredibly accessible.
It's quite easy to end up having a 1:1 conversation with a serious candidates for local office. Just 2 weeks ago I donated $500 to a candidate for CA state assembly and the next day I got a call from the candidate thanking me for the donation.
And it's pretty easy to volunteer for various organizations involved in local politics and get access to the current supervisor or state assembly member who is aligned with that organization.
And public comment is actually just like it's portrayed on Parks and Recreation.
Zoning is a huge issue. Houses are unaffordable to all but the upper middle class in my city because we can’t build fast or dense enough. Permits are an equally huge issue.
Garbage trucks provide a critical public service. Without them I would have to buy a different vehicle.
I agree that things like zoning and trash are important, I don't think anyone disputes that. However, they're not particularly accessible, engaging topics to discuss. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about them, but on the issue of a lack of engagement in the community and local government, citizens are asked to devote time to talking about zoning and trash as opposed to whatever else they choose to fill their time with, whether it's entertainment, side hustles, primary job, etc. On top of that, a growing number of people are being priced out of the market as you point out, which I suspect reduces engagement further. Why would the average person who can't even afford a starter home despite working full-time care about an issue like zoning? It feels like somewhat of a paradox.
A big part of the problem IMO is that as wealth inequality increases, more and more people just don't have a desire to participate in the system because the system perpetually disadvantages them. As the share of the population with enough income to own assets like real estate decreases, the overall engagement in the community decreases, which makes sense.
I think it is mostly cultural. But think it has more to do attention, entertainment, and community breakdown. Most communities are functionally nonexistant. People don't talk or engage with their neighbors.
The fact that local media has been pretty much disappeared doesn't help. I live in a small city and they few times I've tried to see what was going on (I missed a couple infrastructure public information meetings) I was thankful the local university has a student paper.
https://www.berkeleyside.org/ live tweets all of our city meetings. Great summaries. Of course you can always just join the Zoom if you're particularly interested and the live tweets draw you in. Local journalism can play a key role here, so please consider supporting your local paper if they do a good job.
The FBI has indicted like four sitting LA councilmembers now over the past 5 years or so. It's amazing how corrupt our public offices are, especially at the local level. It's not just elected officials either. Both Sanitation and the Water and Power department are pretty openly corrupted, many other city departments too. The LA Sheriffs department has multiple gangs within its ranks, and the sheriff himself has been ignoring subpoenas on the issue.
Americans don't understand what corruption, let alone open corruption, really looks like. Circa 2008 I was pulled over by a cop in Mexico for "speeding", even though I was in tight traffic driving the exact same speed as everybody else around me, which was half the posted speed limit on account of the cop conspicuously parked in the unobstructed median. After pulling me over, he explained that I needed to pay him $500 on the spot if I didn't want to go to jail. This was a demand to pay "la mordida" for which Mexico was infamous, but by this time had (AFAIU) become much more rare in practice except in this particular region (Monterey), notwithstanding that the infamy among Americans remained undiminished. He even offered to take me to an ATM! It took me a good 10 minutes on the side of the road to talk him down to $20. (I would have preferred to go to jail just for the story, but this being modern Mexico we both knew he'd get in trouble if he tried to bring me into the station.)
A few years earlier something similar happened to me when crossing a rural border station near Organ Pipe National Park in Arizona--the officer demanded I pay an "import tax" for the stuff in my car. (I was moving from DC back to SF, taking the more scenic routes wherever I could. The American border guards were sitting in lawn chairs a mile up the road.) I think I talked him down to $10 after 5 minutes of haggling, at which point his supervisor walks over, smiling, and tells him to leave me alone just as the money was about to exchange hands. The supervisor had been peeling an orange while enjoying the spectacle. I guess he must've been bored that day.
Now that's open corruption. And where there's any amount of open corruption, it's a good guess that hidden corruption is extremely pervasive. But if there's not such open corruption (and it's exceedingly rare if not non-existent in the U.S.), we can't make any wild assumptions about hidden corruption.
If you look at the data, actual corruption is quite rare in the U.S., relatively speaking. As mentioned elsethread, in global terms we're near the tippy top. It didn't used to be this way. Even open corruption was once not uncommon in the U.S. At the turn of the 20th century, as civil service reforms gained momentum across the country--municipal, state, and Federal--some elected politicians openly defended kick-back schemes as being democratic. But they lost. This removed much of the opportunity and incentive except when privately and discretely dealing with elected officials or public-facing servants (e.g. cops, inspectors, etc). Later, private rights of action that permitted people to sue municipalities, and the creation of FBI criminal units to proactively investigate corruption schemes even among high-level elected officials, helped to dramatically reduce remaining corruption by creating very real costs at all levels of government. Your example is literally an example of why the U.S. doesn't see much corruption--it comes with very real risks. The FBI and DoJ are still beyond repute when it comes to corruption, even if state-based enforcement officials still too often look the other way. Every politician sweats even the prospect of drawing attention from the Feds.
Instead, Americans now call "corruption" whatever policies and decisions they disagree with if they don't understand the motivations behind them. It's pure cynicism and, ultimately, fatalistic. (And being illegal doesn't ipso facto make something corruption either; no more than violating copyright turns you into a willful criminal.)
That doesn't mean things couldn't be better. Or that real corruption of the type normally implied by the term doesn't actually exist--the cited conspiracy among some LA councilmen is classic corruption, albeit not open. But like with the term "racism", in order to sustain the same prevalence of accusations people have had to dramatically expand the scope of the term when forced to defend themselves. That doesn't mean what's now being referred to isn't unfair, wrong, or otherwise illegitimate, but we've long since descended into word games. Which is unproductive as within this expanded set of problems, there are no common ways to address and resolve them (e.g. simple, across-the-board reforms or related measures); by equivocating we're hurting our ability to identify causation and meaningfully mitigate and remediate actual, substantive issues.
I disagree that corruption is rare in USA. You could say USA "solved" corruption problem by legalizing it. If you agree that legal action cannot be corrupt then you probably could say that corruption is rare in the USA, but I doubt many people would agree with that rule.
There are many ways you can legally bribe a politician in USA. Those bribes are passed in the open, there are even online trackers of those bribes. There are loopholes allowing corruption in other countries too, but nowhere else I encountered such acceptance to bribing politicians with corporate money.
>Instead, Americans now call "corruption" whatever policies and decisions they disagree with if they don't understand the motivations behind them. It's pure cynicism and, ultimately, fatalistic. (And being illegal doesn't ipso facto make something corruption either; no more than violating copyright turns you into a willful criminal.)
The corruption I describe is pretty literal corruption at least in LA city hall. It's not policymaking, its literally quid pro quo. Jose Huizar was a councilmember when a developer handed him like 50 grand cash in a paper bag and purchased escorts for him in Vegas. Mark Ridley Thomas was also a councilmember when he got USC to give his son a degree and a position in return for a public grant. They were arrested by the FBI because they broke the law, not because Americans didn't understand the motivations of their policymaking. They did these things because there is a political environment present in LA county and city governments where this sort of behavior is commonplace, and local moneyed interests take advantage of that fact all too regularly.
My friend has about 4 speeding tickets (over 40mph over) that he gets away by talking to the right lawyer and paying for a "consultation".
Another acquaintance of mine bragged about his growth hack of selling his product to <public authorities> through donating to the campaigns of <elected officials>.
Didnt the head of Apple security also get caught giving large gifts to Cupertino police in exchange for concealed carry licenses?
You'd be extremely naive to think hidden corruption isn't pervasive in the USA.
What you're talking about is called endemic corruption, which is the state's inability to enforce any policy (eg, speeding, or citizens ability to freely travel) due to the corruption of everybody who would need to action it.
On the other end of the scale you can imagine a paper democracy where all the top positions in government and state owned business are corruptly given to the leader's family, but everybody else follow the law, doesn't take bribes etc. It's still very corrupt, it's just a different kind of corruption.
Back in the 1980s, my father was a selectman of our little town (Many New England towns have a board of selectmen instead of a mayor, for those who aren't familiar). The selectmen were also honorary members of the police, and the employment application for police officers asked if you would ever arrest a member of a town selectman's family. If you answered, "Yes", you didn't get the job.
For this and other reasons, after my dad's single term as selectman, he vowed never to be involved in politics again.
For folks in San Francisco (I assume a disproportionately large chunk of HN readership), Mission Local has been great at shining light on local corruption: https://missionlocal.org/category/local-government/
It's interesting that there were over 200 write-in votes, and no official candidate? I wonder why the write-in campaign. Fees or signature requirements?
If you read the second tweet in the thread, the guy mentions that he already got a certificate that he won the elections from the Bureau of Elections. Knowing that, I don't really see the point in contacting him.
This is one of those things that only happen in anglo-like systems. In more "napoleonic" systems, the State has direct oversight of this sort of thing. In Italy or France, if a local authority tried to pull something like this, the police would literally step in and disband it a day after. You can have disputes on the legality of the election, or confusion about who should take the seat afterwards, but you can't just hold elections and then ignore the result.
This may sound strange to foreign ears, but I kinda like the ramshackle nature of local politics in Anglo systems. It feels more Bilbo Baggins. So long as the courts stay honest we can weather these minor outrages that crop up every so often.
Well, I'm not that confident. If the "offender" happens to be friends with "the state", that is, the party in power, then it's very likely that not much will happen, the executive will be happy to let them be, the prosecutors, who are not independent, will ignore the problem, and the judiciary will have its hands tied. Stories of corrupt politicians enjoying years and years of pilfering of the public good are much more common in "napoleonic" systems, it feels.
It's better to have a strong judiciary than a strong administrative police, imho.
> Stories of corrupt politicians enjoying years and years of pilfering of the public good are much more common in "napoleonic" systems, it feels
That's largely because "pilfering of the public good" is much more precisely defined in such systems. There is plenty of corruption in anglo systems too. In fact, having moved to England, I've become accustomed to a degree of impropriety I honestly did not expect. It's just that a series of behaviors that would be explicitly considered illegal where I come from, here belong to a grey area that may or may not ever be illuminated by lawsuits. Because oversight is extremely weak, one can get away very easily with administrative murder. It's easy to look honest when bad behavior is not considered dishonest.
Oh, just outside of Harrisburg? Yeah not very surprising.
That whole chunk of the state is a hot mess. Harrisburg is the city that famously bankrupted itself building a trash furnace, had to go into receivership, had a receiver appointed by the state, and then had that receiver flee the country.
If you're reading and you're really determined to overcome corruption, you need to document everything. Getting the other auditor on board would be good too. Make sure you assert that the privilege of holding office is yours, provide the certificate, and show them the laws. If they still deny you the authority and position, then look up a PA law called official oppression. Report this crime to the police. If they decline to cite/arrest, look up the process for filing a private criminal complaint. The DA could still decline to prosecute, but you could appeal that decision to a judge. Good luck (my experience is nobody in the system actually cares and they'll side with the establishment).
I don't know a lot about US law specifically, but this sounds a bit more like an administrative law issue than a criminal one... My instinct would be to look at filing an application for judicial review, no? (Note: IANAL)
You're pretty much on it, this set of facts is almost identical to the facts in the OG judicial review case, Marbury v Madison, save for the specific laws in question.
If there is something in the laws that requires the Board of Supervisors to cooperate in the swearing-in or otherwise, then you can ask a court to force them to do it. This is called an application for a writ of mandamus, which is a special court order for a public official to perform a duty that they are required by law to do. You'd think that'd be pointless, but it converts a violation of a random state law (with no specific penalties attached) into a potential violation of a court order, which attaches various coercive powers controlled by the judiciary. One of those powers is imprisonment, for example. To the untrained ear that does sound a bit like criminal punishment, and it really is pretty close. The overall scheme is that public officials must do their duty, lest they be told again by the judiciary, in which case they really must do it.
If I recall, in Marbury v. Madison, the plaintiff had been appointed to some office by the outgoing president, but he hadn't received his official commission by the time that president left office. The plaintiff asked the Court to order the new presidential administration to deliver the commission he was entitled to. The Court refused. The Court decided that it did not have the power to order the executive to do anything. The Court instead described its powers as limited to reviewing whether laws passed or actions taken by the other branches of government were unconstitutional (i.e., a much more influential power).
Marbury v. Madison isn't relevant here because the office was an elected, not appointed, position. There was another case, however, in which the U.S. House of Representatives refused to swear in a new member who had been elected and subsequently convicted of some serious crimes. I don't think the case was litigated though. (If I recall, the elected person resigned.)
You are correct that the Court did not issue a writ. But it was not that "it did not have the power to order the executive to do anything" point blank. It this was on a technicality regarding equivalently either who could issue it, or under what jurisdiction SCOTUS could do it. SCOTUS did not have jurisdiction, as the case was not an appeal from a lower court, and the matter was not one SCOTUS could decide in its original jurisdiction. This last bit about the scope of its original jurisdiction is the famous bit, Justice Marshall got there by asserting SCOTUS could strike down legislation as unconstitutional, including the section of Judiciary Act that would have given them the power to issue the writ. It's quite funny.
Other than that, Marbury was entitled to the remedy of mandamus, so he should have filed in a lower court instead. If he had, that court could have issued the writ or declined to; so too could SCOTUS have heard an appeal and either issued a writ or declined to. (I can't remember if he subsequently tried this.) My reference to Marbury v. Madison sits in between the 1st and 3rd parts of the decision: we (1st) pretend we've ascertained a similar statement to "having this legal title to the office, he has a consequent right to the commission; a refusal to deliver which is a plain violation of that right", and then ignore the (3rd) jurisdiction problem because it's not relevant, simply assume we're filing in a court that does have this power in its original jurisdiction (most of them do, basically only SCOTUS does not).
Bearing in mind that I mainly brought it up to emphasise that this is a problem we've seen before and has better solutions than this guy's idea of getting people to comment on the Board's Facebook page, this is the part (the 2nd part of the decision) that best reflects why I think it's relevant:
> It has already been stated that the applicant has, to that commission, a vested legal right, of which the executive cannot deprive him. He has been appointed to an office, from which he is not removable at the will of the executive; and being so appointed, he has a right to the commission which the secretary has received from the president for his use. The act of congress does not indeed order the secretary of state to send it to him, but it is placed in his hands for the person entitled to it; and cannot be more lawfully withheld by him, than by another person. [...] This, then, is a plain case of a mandamus, either to deliver the commission, or a copy of it from the record; it only remains to be inquired, Whether it can issue from this court.
There is clearly an analogy here, not one that is actually a precedent, but an analogy nonetheless. Focus on "an office, from which he is not removable at the will of the executive", which is what this guy has.
All of this is correct de jure, with the exception that the executive powers that be (i.e. sheriff's dept) can refuse to comply with the court order. Then nobody would be around to enforce the court order.
We prefer not to talk about that kind of total collapse of the rule of law, because it gives people ideas. It is not a necessary or desirable part of the discussion of judicial power. Nevertheless, you can just apply to a higher court and take advantage of their more reliable enforcement apparatus.
True, but there are so many "small" issues that it'll get lost. I contacted an investigate journalist about an issue. They declined to run it because there were much bigger issues.
Well it’s important to talk about, lest we repeat the mistakes of the past. The Little Rock Nine comes to mind as an example where enforcement of the law from the highest court in the land was resisted (in this specific case by a governor).
Those weren't "mistakes of the past". They did it on purpose. There is no pathway from educating regular people about ways to circumvent court orders to strengthening the rule of law. Yes, interesting from historical and legal perspectives and thinking about how to design enforcement mechanisms to resist these things, but we weren't talking about that, and Hacker News is not a law reform commission. I am specifically putting up resistance to talking about it in public. It undermines people's confidence in these systems, which are actually very strong, and the resulting reduced participation in the systems that make up the rule of law (e.g. this guy, who is already losing confidence in his local democracy, choosing not to use the courts thinking that his chances of success are slim, and giving up) frees the stage for people who wish to undermine it. I don't propose that this argument is relevant to very many other things besides the kind of abject disobedience you described.
Judicial review of executive actions like these and its mechanisms of enforcement do not stink, rather they are one of the greatest achievements of human civilisation and arguably function better than literally every other part of society in any democracy you care to name. They do not need reform. If they needed reform beyond small calibrations of penalty units, the correct answer would more likely be a civil war.
I don't agree with your position that regular people shouldn't know about cases where rule of law failed, because it might make them question the rule of law.
A strong and resilient democracy is built on transparency, not on hiding information.
Anything that people put resistance towards public disclosure is always a strong smell; not dissimilar to this township refusing to swear in an independent auditor.
It’s a fine distinction. I didn’t say people shouldn’t know. I said we shouldn’t talk about it so casually in a public forum. The information is available to anyone who wants to know.
I learned most of the things that I know without explicitly looking for them. I am glad that this topic came up in this very thread because I would not have learned about Little Rock Nine otherwise.
I am not an American. Maybe neither are you. But I feel compelled to contend with the fact that many Americans are right on the edge of abandoning their democracy. In these circumstances knowledge is not neutral. My aim here was simply to not permit that tiny chunk of non-neutral knowledge to go without context, and I think I have succeeded.
Edit, to put this slightly better: there is a huge difference between keeping something a secret and saying “before I teach you this, I think you should learn these things first”. If the first thing you learned about American civics was that it’s all an illusion and anyone can do what they want, the lesson has utterly failed. You’ve not learned any civics at all.
That’s elitism and is actually an undemocratic ideal. The freedom of ideas is paramount in a Western democracy. And what I was trying to teach others is that the State’s monopoly on violence is what keeps the whole thing running smoothly. For example, the Magna Carta would have meant nothing if it was not backed by the armies of landowning noblemen.
> We prefer not to talk about that kind of total collapse of the rule of law, because it gives people ideas.
And because you do not talk about that kind of collapse, you get people like Joe Arpaio who (after years!) finally got convicted for contempt of court - which however did not stop Trump from pardoning him of course.
It's possible you could do both. If you show them the laws, cert, etc and they still deny you the position, then it does fit the definition of the criminal law. Could be hard to prosecute depending on the exact response.
Which criminal law? See my comment (sibling); failure to perform a public duty is not a crime in itself. There could easily be crimes that are written to address these kinds of scenarios, but you would have to specify which ones. (Edit: oh, OC points out "official oppression" in PA. )
Does that apply to elected officials? I thought it was only law enforcement?
If you mean report the police for not citing/arresting, then FBI/DOJ are not interested in prosecuting. Those actions fall under law enforcement discretion. The police have the power to decide not to arrest or cite someone, even if they plainly broke the law.
On a side note, I did file a DOJ civil rights complaint (results in injunctive relief instead of criminal charges like the FBI color of law) against the state police practices. It sounds like the DOJ gets too many complaints to handle and isn't interested in, or doesn't have the resources for, small rights violations.
So my experience is that literally nobody in the system is interested in investigating and upholding the integrity of out system. Our system is built on sweeping the dirt under the rug, as evidenced in the court rulings that releasing judicial complaints, even ones containing exculpatory evidence, would be too injurious to the system (the only way they would be injurious is if they were incompetent or corrupt with nothing being done about it).
I could be mistaken, but I believe "laws of the United States" only refers to federal law, and thus, would not apply here. There may be a similar state-level law that is applicable but I couldn't find one.
It's possible there's a federal law about preventing someone from taking their duly elected office (even at the state level). Or some other rights violation. They would have to find the federal law.
The town either settles, or you go to court, and if you win, the court compels them to comply with the law, and the town probably has to cover legal fees.
It was an off-season election (i.e. no Congress people or presidents up for election), which usually have an order of magnitude smaller turnout.
That's the best opportunity for a dedicated candidate to rally enough support to get elected even if they aren't one of the two major parties, especially to a relatively small potatoes office like this.
Honestly, refusing to allow any duly elected official to be sworn into office and do their job as specified by law, whatever it is, is far more mountain than molehill regardless of the nature of the job or the qualifications of the person elected.
You are of course right that a CPA is a better choice for auditor than a non-accountant. But that's either an argument to the state legislature to change how the position is chosen (e.g. making it an appointment with professional qualification requirements) or an argument to the voters to elect a CPA (assuming one chooses to run). It's not an argument to flout the system as designed by duly elected legislators and illegitimately shove aside the candidate duly elected by the voters.
Where, anywhere, in this thread, is there an actual refusal?
I don't think they refused. I think it just didn't happen yet because people wrongly assumed it wasn't necessary. I think it's all a silly game of telephone gone bat-shit wrong and then blown up into a huge fucking deal for no reason other than internet drama.
My interpretation:
1. The author asked the Supervisors about swearing him in. They genuinely have no clue what to do and suggest picking this up at the next meeting.
2. The Supervisors (elected) asked the City Manager (employee) about this in their weekly meeting.
3. City Manager sends an email saying that since they retained a CPA firm there's nothing for the author to do. Likely the City Manager's sincere understanding of state statute. Notice that the email DOESN'T EVEN STATE THAT THEY WON'T SWEAR HIM IN! Just that he's not needed. Which is not entirely correct but also definitely not incorrect.
4. Supervisors (wrongly) assume that the author is operating in good faith and that hearing that his main volunteer task has been outsourced to a reputable firm is end-of-story.
Case-in-point: I'd LOVE to hear from the author if he reply-all'd to that email with "Great, thanks! I'd still like to be sworn in! Does the next meeting work for everyone?"
After hearing from the City Manager, did he go ahead and ask to be sworn in anyways? Or did he start his social media campaign?
I think there's just genuine confusion on the part of a bunch of part-time city admins about who this dude is and how they're supposed to interact with him, given that they are already paying a CPA to do his only job.
My prediction for the future: I don't think there's a genuine refusal to swear him in, just confusion and/or incompetence. So now that this whole thing blew up on social media this dude will be sworn in ASAP. And then... nothing. Because the alternative is that a sizable accounting firm fucked up big time and/or accepted kickbacks from a tiny township, which doesn't seem likely.
My meta-prediction: bat-shit malcontents are running for local office in droves, and every aspect of local government is going to become insane and dynfunctional until the entire country collapses under the weight of incompetents with massive egos.
(Note that the CPA is not a rando from the town -- it's a mid-sized firm that is specializes in single audits and has its offices in a major metro. There is probably nothing that a corrupt official in a dinky township could offer a Principal at a mid-sized audit firm to fake or lie on an audit.)
I hope you're right that they'll swear him in soon, and allow him to do whatever job he's legally supposed to do. (And yes, I hope he lets the CPA do the job they were hired for, to the extent the law allows them to do it and to the extent they're behaving ethically themselves.)
Honestly I do think the elected auditor (calling him "this dude" is a needlessly demeaning moniker) is operating in good faith - the CPA will still be allowed to do what they're supposed to do, but state law puts certain responsibilities in the hands of the elected official even when a CPA is hired.
I strongly presume that no ethical CPA would want to fulfill duties that legally aren't theirs to fulfill, so either the town is giving inaccurate instructions to the CPA firm which isn't investigating well enough to learn the true legal limits of their duties, or nobody is fulfilling those duties which are statutorily reserved to the elected officials, or the CPA is knowingly exceeding their authorized duties. I can't tell which is true but none of these possibilities are good.
By contrast, since the same thing happened two years prior with the other guy who was elected then, I think the city admins are either negligent in not having the correct answer from that interaction ready for prompt application this time or not acting in good faith themselves. Again, I can't tell which is true but neither of these possibilities is good.
> Honestly I do think the elected auditor (calling him "this dude" is a needlessly demeaning moniker) is operating in good faith
I disagree. I think he went into local government looking for a fight.
>I strongly presume that no ethical CPA would want to fulfill duties that legally aren't theirs to fulfill
The supervisors are fully within their rights re: the external firm.
> By contrast, since the same thing happened two years prior with the other guy who was elected then, I think the city admins are either negligent in not having the correct answer from that interaction ready for prompt application this time or not acting in good faith themselves. Again, I can't tell which is true but neither of these possibilities is good.
Yes, the city admins of a 17K person township misinterpreted an arcane piece of law. Also, they were idiotic for assuming that the fact that he has no real responsibilities means it's NBD to not swear him in.
All of that is granted.
The reasonable resolution to this case would have been for him to reply-all to the original email and insist on being sworn in anyways. I have a suspicion that this didn't happen, and that this guy is making a big deal over nothing for the sake of a social media following.
Welcome to Idiocracy, where instead of competent CPAs doing boring work we get twitter threads about a game of telephone between a bunch of part-time employees.
> My meta-prediction: bat-shit malcontents are running for local office in droves, and every aspect of local government is going to become insane and dynfunctional until the entire country collapses under the weight of incompetents with massive egos
I genuinely don't know whether this is the case with this guy (I do not know enough about the person tweeting) but this is apparently a very real, growing problem. I kinda hope these people get bored and move on.
I agree - though if it is just a few local officials acting foolishly, and who will soon be put in their place, then there's nothing much to worry about. Society can handle a few dummies acting in character.
If, on the other hand, it was happening more broadly - say, for example, a national election, with officials at the highest level of government acting in this way - then there would be much greater cause for concern.
I'm not convinced you could agree to settle such an application for money. Agreeing to discontinue an application for mandamus (the kind of court order you're referring to) that was to bless you with public power and impose upon you duties you were elected to carry out in exchange for money is roughly as corrupt as trying to prevent this guy from taking office in the first place, and may well be illegal. But "the town settles" in a broader sense of "agrees to stand down and swear you in", yes. Also nitpick, you would sue the individual members of the Board in their official capacity.
Moore’s story is kind of funny. He was still in high school and was sick of the principal. He had also just turned 18. So he went door to door to all the stoner kids, skateboarders and other young adults that also disliked the principal and got them sogned up to vote him in as a bloc.
Then the older, more conservative types got wind of it and ended up fielding three candidates, all of whom split the vote allowing Moore to win.
So in the end, he spent his last months of high school being the principal’s boss and being called “sir” instead of being yelled at for having his shirt untucked again.
As the author mentions in his thread, he has no idea how to do the job. This is increasingly common: malcontents running for what should be boring local administrative positions and then going on a dick-swinging power trip that makes a mess of everything all while playing the victim.
I'd assume it eventually comes down to a real estate broker who literally doesn't know how to run an audit but none-the-less ran for auditor, being sworn in by people who NEVER INTENDED TO NOT SWEAR HIM IN, sitting in front of an excel spreadsheet, and either finding nothing or making shit up. Since the town is already audited by an external CPA firm that is fairly large and doesn't have any incentive to run cover-up for a tiny township.
I mean it's possible the guy is a douche. I didn't get that vibe from the thread, but what do I know. It's almost guaranteed that the rest of the people he's talking about are terrible though, assuming he's not making the _entire_ thing up. So I think what I'm saying is that it's at worst a wash.
As for how to learn to do the job, I'd be surprised if there's not a youtube series on it. There is for every other dumb thing I look up.
You’ve replied more in this thread than anyone, calling this guy a grifter and a douche several times and attacking others in this thread, do you have some personal stake in this?
It seems like you do and all your posts make me even more suspicious of this little town’s behavior. Maybe it’s just incompetence, but I’d run an audit like I would with anything that deviates from the norm, like your posts.
The fact that they did the exact same thing to the last guy who won the election for auditor makes it less likely that they are not doing this deliberately.
The author should be sworn in and allowed to audit the township. Obviously.
But, also, this is a perfect example of a
Hanlon's razor situation. What's more likely:
a) the board that doesn't know how to do its job particularly well and figures "we hired a CPA... ya know, a professional who knows how to audit... so thanks for volunteering but we don't need a sci-fi author atm. Thanks.", or
b) there's some sort of vast conspiracy involving multiple elected officials, a mid-sized auditing firm with a dozen Principal CPAs half a state away, etc... to... what? steal funds from a tiny township with no meaningful tax base? And, not only that, but the township's administration thinks that not sitting the board of auditors is the least conspicuous way to cover things up.
My interpretation of this thread is that the supervisors are almost certainly more incompetent than corrupt and that the author is making a mountain out of a mole hill.
This is happening more and more often in local government [1]. We have a malcontent on our local school board who is convinced the entire system is Out To Get Her. In reality, she just has no god damn clue how anything works and has a wicked personality disorder.
Nepotism out the wazoo in much of America. In NYC, the police officer's son gets the police officer job, and the fireman's son gets the fireman job. They're considered plum jobs because they have good healthcare and early retirement.
Personal anecdote: old professor married a young student. Got her to do a PhD. Got her a non-tenure track position with his department. Refused to retire until she was given his tenure track job. Said it openly. (Can you guess his subject? You guessed it: Philosophy.)
I keep reading that social mobility is far lower (and geographical is as well). A lot of that is probably the war/disenfranchisement on/of the Millenials.
Nepotism is one way of protecting your children then.
Why would Philo be particularly bad as nonrevenue humanities go? I'm shocked they grant tenure in humanities anymore, colleges are so morally bankrupt. I assume that is going to change very soon.
In defense of tenure: its function is to allow faculty to speak their mind. I believe in tenure. If you want to know what would happen without tenure, look at places such as Pakistan (technically a democracy, but basically nobody speaks their mind, including Supreme Court Justices).
I too am not necessarily opposed to tenure, I was more remarking since the vampire management MBA class has inculcated themselves into "higher education" administration, they've gradually hollowed out the professorship class with adjuncts and the like.
Humanities aren't generally "revenue" departments in terms of grants, so I'd assume they'd go after those with the usual union busting techniques (since tenure is kind of a distributed union).
One trick corps did for unions was to have the established union workers "sell out" the incoming workers. So the old guard gets to keep sweet benefits, pay, seniority, while new hires did not. The people in charge of the unions and the existing base would drop that negotiation, but the management knew that attrition and age would phase out the union.
I'm pretty sure institutions are doing this by increasing adjunct percentages and the like. Meanwhile, the professors with tenure turn a blind eye and as long as they keep their position, who cares about anyone else.
Of course most of these people were... baby boomers.
> One trick corps did for unions was to have the established union workers "sell out" the incoming workers. So the old guard gets to keep sweet benefits, pay, seniority, while new hires did not. The people in charge of the unions and the existing base would drop that negotiation, but the management knew that attrition and age would phase out the union.
I've wondered about such trends, and wondered why I as a new employee didn't get the same healthcare and retirement benefits that older "grandfathered-in" employees got. Thank you for clarifying. Finally, I understand.
Even if there's just a 10% chance of this, the OP should get ready for a genuine fight from these people (i.e. he needs a lawyer). They could be trying to protect themselves from jail time.
I think he’s getting all he wants which is attention. The others probably are just your regular incompetent low effort skimmers from the top, but this guy is a douche with an axe to grind and completely unprepared for the job he’s signed up for.
I would love a coherent explanation for why the mid-sized accounting firm retained by the township for annual audits would risk their reputation and jail time to abet petty corruption in a teeny tiny township.
Do the CPAs actually have any fiduciary responsibilities, i.e. that the spending is prudent? My understanding is that they will attest that the books are an accurate and true accounting and they make no broader claims. The elected auditor may serve as a watchdog against actions that are against the taxpayers’ financial interests — even if CPAs and essentially policing accounting errors.
Probably massive amounts of wasteful spending that's dolled out in ways that are borderline graft. Cool toys for the PD, boondoggle projects assigned to politically connected contractors, etc, etc. Basically all the typical mismanagement you get somewhere that is either rich enough to afford it or dysfunctional enough nobody expects anything else.
Now I am interested in who the CPA is. Wonder if he is taking new clients? What other interests does he represent? If I was in this situation I would want to talk directly to the CPA to try and understand the situation a lot more.
I’m far from a (big L) Libertarian so I don’t have a bias in this (edit: I don’t have a bias in favor of this candidate, I have a bias against) but it sounds to me like there’s a corruption problem in Cumberland (wouldn’t surprise me, being from nearby and frequently passed through). And it sounds like a “looks like we protected democracy” cover was created for that.
I do not want the author’s politics to succeed, but I definitely want to see this made right according to the votes cast.
Yes, I'm a communist. I do not want an auditor or any other position of power to be held by a Libertarian. Can we move past my disclosure of my own politics and acknowledge that I think based on the facts that he won and should be sworn in??
Without getting too much into politics, I am pretty sure most libertarians would be pretty decent in an auditor position. (assuming the person has a least basic understanding of accounting). An auditor is not a policy based position.
While most people think of Libertarian right on the basic political compass when thinking about libertarians. Lib-right and lib-left do have a fair amount of overlap on certain things. Although, considering your politics I can understand your dislike since most lib-right are quite pro business, but their politics are more than that.
For the purpose of this discussion I absolutely do not care about the candidate’s political position or fitness for the job, and find it absurd that my comment is being used to inject advocacy for it or any political position.
The only reason I brought up my political difference was to make absolutely clear that I am advocating for seating a political opponent, because not doing so is undemocratic.
I agree that not seating the person who won their local election is a big problem. You mentioned you don’t want their politics to succeed. I just was saying this is a non-policy position. Further, when it comes to how tax money is spent a Libertarian generally is gonna make certain it is spent as approved and allowed so the concern about policy is a tad misplaced.
Like I am not sure which type of communist you are, but if you are along the lines of an anarcho-communist or the lib-left area. All I was saying the main disagreements between the two are regarding business and property ownership. For a lot of things there is a lot of overlap. (They both are south on the basic compass after all) Although some big L libertarians are very hardcore capitalists so I can understand your concerns. Although yea this is a bit of a tangent. I guess all I was trying to say was I am not sure why the concern for a non-policy position.
I’m saying I have repeatedly tried to express a strong disinterest in discussing the political difference in this context, and I’ve repeatedly clarified that. Clarifying your engagement isn’t going to change my unwillingness to participate, here, where I clearly described my politics to support a candidate with whom I disagree.
I don't know, the theoretical power an auditor holds is too much IMHO for someone that doesn't understand government and believes they should do almost nothing. I can easily see how such an auditor can block things ( e.g. saying they'll refuse to certify accounts if money is spent on a new park because for them, parks should be built by benevolent rich people or citizens pooling money or run for profit, and the government doing that is an egregious waste of taxpayer money and bureaucracy).
Note: that's just conjecture, i have no idea what Kevin's specific type of Libertarian is, maybe he's a sensible one, even though i can't see how that would work.
PS with my favourite quote on libertarians - "They are like house cats. They are convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand." By John Spaulding
Imagine you live in a country where there is no democracy. The easiest and most likely thing to happen will be said government pretending there is democracy.
"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." - Stalin.
So even if you believe you live under democracy. You may not.
In this case, OP's FPV discovered he doesn't live under democracy. Obviously this is just local election, which is often more powerful and more corrupt than a larger government.
You now have to hope that the corrupt non-democractic government allows you? lol good luck.
Some forms of libertarians, especially in the US, overlap almost to being identical with anarcho-capitalists, which is a type of anarchism. Libertarian can mean a lot of different things depending on the person, but few of them seem appropriate for government office.
Anarchism is synonymous with libertarian socialism. They are Marxists and seek to abolish capitalism.
In the mid-20th century, right-libertarian proponents of anarcho-capitalism and minarchism co-opted the term libertarian to advocate laissez-faire capitalism and strong private property rights such as in land, infrastructure and natural resources. The latter is the dominant form of libertarianism in the United States, where it advocates civil liberties, natural law, free-market capitalism and a major reversal of the modern welfare state.[1]
They also say there there was no voter fraud at the same time they call for reforms to stop fraud. If you read the bills you referenced you'll see they don't do what you have been told they do.
Voter fraud and voter supression are two different things.
Fraud is I sneak into the booth and change your vote before it is counted. Suppression is stopping bus service on election day in the neighborhoods that don't vote how you want them to.
Democrats are accused of fraud, but there are almost no cases of it happening (and they all end up being in favor of Republicans when they are found). Republicans use suppression so often that in 1965 a law was passed requiring them to get federal approval to make changes that impact voting, which unfortunately was overturned in 2013.
Please stick to the site guidelines. Perhaps you don't owe corrupt aisle-sides better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
Look up the discrepancies between exit polls and official tallies in any US presidential election since 2000. Discrepancies are common and only happen in districts in swing states where the electronic machines that don't have paper trails. Every single case of a large discrepancy shows an error in favor of the Republican candidate.
Similarly, Texas's Republican governor put out a bounty for documented evidence of voter fraud. The only pay out was for proof a Republican attempted to vote twice.
It's well-established that Gore won Florida in 2000, and therefore should have been president.
If this sort of thing really happens on both sides of the isle, how come there is no tangible evidence the Democrats thew an election this century?
Democracy allows regular people, not in the in-crowd, to put themselves up for election.
As far as I understand these roles are not full time, minimally compensated or even completely voluntary. If a volunteer comes in on their first day, I would assume that the people there would help them settle in and show them around. At least that’s how I’ve been treated and have treated others.
Why are you fighting this so hard? Do you disagree that this position should exists? (Then maybe redirect your anger towards that legislation) Or do you have something to hide in the books?
The thing that helps with garden-variety trolls (actually maybe we should call them garden trolls! like garden gnomes...) is ignoring them. That's the timeless internet wisdom about that.
I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. State your opinion in clearly and concisely and refrain from personal attacks so that people consider what you're saying seriously.
It's a playbook that is being used across the country. On both sides of the political spectrum, btw.
Local political office that no one cares enough to fight for is turning into the new platform for a kinda fucked up version of social media influencer.
How is local politics office turning into that? I don’t see where you’re coming from. Also, considering the number of people who are outraged at this, it seems that people clearly care about local political, don’t you think?
What should I see on substack?
Also, assume that OP is indeed a troll who won with 200 votes total via a keg, does that make what happened to him ok? Do you think that you’d feel differently if you lived in that town or was one of the voters? Even if the intentions of those who dismissed him was good, why is it bad to be skeptical of it? Why is it bad to be skeptical of those in a place of power?
Edit: also considering the number of comments you’ve made on this post specifically, I’m genuinely wondering why is it this hill specifically that you’re willing to die on?
There's a general push on both the left and the right to turn local elected offices that ought to be non-partisan into cut throat political battles. There's an intentional effort by all political tribes to weaponize every possible office. This is not going to end well. A dysfunctional federal legislature is one thing. A local council that can't get work done could literally tear the country apart one small town at a time.
Yes, I am deeply pissed off by a township auditor going on a Twitter rant about The Establishment on his twitter account. Auditors aren't there to Take On The Establishment. They are there to... audit.
> it seems that people clearly care about local political, don’t you think?
On the contrary. This is an example of one particular "local" becoming and being subsumed by the "national".
"The Establishment" that you rail against when talking about Clinton and Soros or Lehman and Koch is probably not controlling your tiny city supervisor council.
Go back and read this fucking twitter thread from the first word onward.
Even if we grant every point of every person arguing with me here (well, except the dude who wants to physically attack me and is now, in his own words, stalking me...): to the extent that local corruption exists, it's probably petty grift/nepotism totally disconnected from the whatever you imagine "The Establishment" to be.
> Also, assume that OP is indeed a troll who won with 200 votes total via a keg...
This appears to just be a miscommunication. I did not intend to suggest that's literally what he did. My point was the frivolity of the number. Actually, I think my meaning is clear after re-reading my original comment? (All of your related questions stem from a miscommunication of my intended meaning.)
> Edit: also considering the number of comments you’ve made on this post specifically, I’m genuinely wondering why is it this hill specifically that you’re willing to die on?
Again, shenanigans in local politics generally. I have no tie to this community and I do not live in PA.
I don't know, it seems pretty libertarian for a county/township to nullify state law when it deems the law unnecessary or bad. Different branches of libertarianism may disagree but in the end it's all about localism, no?
A "libertarian" who believes by definition in the idea that government is corrupt, accusing the government of being corrupt. How surprising.
Corruption is a pretty low bar. Why don't we go for laziness? The supervisors are lazy. They don't want to deal with the bureaucracy of an auditor which basically has no powers when a CPA is hired. They also don't want to deal with the yearly random "informed citizen" who decides *this is the year* he's going to participate in local government, despite never having been in the local township offices before.
There's a word for this type of idiot, but I can't find it right now.
> They don't want to deal with the bureaucracy of an auditor which basically has no powers when a CPA is hired
Your run-off-the-mill accountant will only check that there was enough budget, a quote, a confirmation from some admin staff that the service has been provided as agreed, a bill for that service referring to the quote, and a record from admin that the bill has been paid.
The entire point of having an independently (!) elected auditor is to make sure that there are no shady deals going on - things like vendors excessively charging for services based upon golf-club deals with the mayor.
> They also don't want to deal with the yearly random "informed citizen" who decides this is the year he's going to participate in local government, despite never having been in the local township offices before.
Actually, these kind of "informed citizens" are those that actually serve the interests of society the best - they don't go and accept stuff simply because it has always been done so. They go in, dive deep and hold people accountable!
HN is a statistical distribution across a wide spectrum. The only thing that helps is to make sure your own contributions raise the median quality, rather than dragging it down further.
The hardcore political establishment is corrupt head to tail. It is corrupt in Silver Spring Township, Pennsylvania, it is corrupt down in the good town of Mechanicsburg, PA, it is corrupt in the whole of Cumberland County, and I swear it is rotten in these United States. Every day, I feel like we inch closer and closer to a rupture that will cannot be repaired without severe measures. The class of people who control Silver Spring Township are the same people who tell you what to think and how to vote nationwide.
The United States is consistently in the top decile of least corrupt countries globally. Don't really care for your second to last sentence either, let's tone that kind of rhetoric down. (The author of the Twitter thread should absolutely sue- he'll probably get a pro bono attorney from a libertarian or good government nonprofit after his thread gets attention)
It's not, though, according to your own source. Also, you may also want to look at the assigned not-corrupt index rather than only a ranking, in which the US scores only 67 out of 99.
That’s a very important difference. US corruption especially at the local level is well hidden in part due to a recent drop off in investigative reporting.
It’s also been institutionalized via regulatory capture etc such that things often go unnoticed by the general public. On top of this trying to bring up how corrupt other countries are perceived is pure whataboutism.
Number 27 - a bit more corrupt than United Arab Emirates, Bhutan, Uruguay and Chile. How on earth could someone read that as a good position for the USA to be in? The US is constantly touted as some great leader of the world but it is never in the top of any statistics of Good Things. The US should be compared to the best (Denmark) not just be like "yeah 27 out of 180 is great" or "#25 on the Democracy Index, marked as a Flawed democracy, is amazing!"
Counting the votes is currently less important than deciding who can vote, and what they can vote for. Over 1% of the US population lives in non states. The majority of the US population lives in areas gerrymandered into irrelevance.
Beyond that the vastly expanded definition of felon has eroded the ability for at least 5.1 million Americans to vote. Immigration is almost more a question of voting than anything else. Add in various forms of voter suppression and frankly Americans politics has almost completely been separated from the “will of the people.”
I don't think a potentially valid complaint about something should be accused of "corroding it", especially when there is very blatant and obvious problems with the political system in the US in general. Respond with substantial counter evidence if you want to be persuasive
What evidence did legerdemain provide that needs to be countered? They made sweeping but unsubstantiated claims amounting to "all government is corrupt at all levels" and vague warnings about "a rupture that cannot be repaired without severe measures," whatever that means.
A comment lacking in substance doesn't really warrant a more substantive rebuttal than was given.
I think the chain of logic in support of the idea is supposed to go like this:
Faith in necessary institutions is needed to keep them running. The institutions are deemed necessary because they keep #6734 and people like them safe. You owe #6734 et al. safety as part of the social contract. Therefore the institutions are owed your faith.
The assumptions beyond that I think are:
-The institutions actually keeps them safe (and not just feeling safe)
OR
-The institution only really keeps them feeling safe, but feeling safe is the actual value here worth preserving.
AND
-This social contract is in your best interests because it will be upheld for you too.
A democracy is meant to be driven from the collective will of your neighbors. Your lazy name subtly displays the disdain you hold for your neighbor in a community like this, one that accounts for their vote of approval/disapproval of your posts (the most easily understood motive to create "throwaway" accounts in the first place). From that platform, you use rhetorical devices in a subconsciously Machiavellian bid to affect that will, to maintain a status quo you like. This implicit lack of trust displayed here and now damages the very fabric you seem to be trying to uphold. It might be beneficial to your cause if you took on a more meaningful name.
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/uconsCheck.cfm...
The hired accountant does get most of the powers:
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/uconsCheck.cfm...
But not the power to set compensation for the township supervisors:
The board of auditors shall determine the compensations for the current year authorized in section 606 for supervisors employed by the township.
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/LI/uconsCheck.cfm...