County, do your duty

EDITOR:

This is an open letter to Douglas County commissioners:

Our homeowners association of Job's Peak Ranch have notified us that you are scheduling another set of public hearings on the increase of water rates and correction of the deficiency of your water systems in your proposal to operate and upgrade the several other local systems in the county. This is a repetition of your illegal procedure attempts to do so against Job's Peak Ranch recently adjudicated as an illegal procedure by the court.

I observe that the timing of the June 3 and June 17 hearings has obviously been arranged to make it practically impossible for those interested to express their views and witness your actions. This is rather childish conduct on the part of the responsible government officials in my opinion, but in keeping with your past actions on this matter and administration of your duties.

In the early years of the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States of America for a republic by our founding fathers many years of debates and effort were spent on creating a form of government intended to give the people, not the elitists, the right to govern themselves.

On entering your office you gave your oath to honor and perform under the conditions of the Constitution of our country and our laws. You fail to respect these promises of your office and our government "by the people and for the people." Instead you are usurping those powers like the rest of the officials and leaders in our country. I respectfully request again that you look within your souls and do what you are supposed to do with care, compassion and facts instead of actions of the "old boys club" approach. These are responsible and able people in this community to assist you in a successful resolution of your challenges and a proper long range urban plan.

In this matter you are failing to educate and inform the public of the needs of this county. You are also failing to work with the people to develop long range and financial provisions to confront, determine, plan and act with prudent steps to plan the future of this county with participation of the citizens. Everything you do is merely "crises after crises corrections" of past mistakes lacking intelligent consideration of professional assistance, public participation and modern governmental planning. The global world of today can no longer accept your old ways here or anywhere else. Nor will your citizens.

Harold L. Johnson

former city planner, public works

engineer and city manager

Job's Peak Ranch