From fast track to backtrack

By: Orange News Staff | Orange County Review
Published: September 28, 2011

We’re not sure why it happened, but we’re glad it did.
Tuesday night, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to keep their terms and school board terms on their current, staggered schedule. A little more than a month ago, we reported, “barring public outcry in opposition, the change appears imminent.”
And there the board was Tuesday night voting down something that seemed to have sufficient support to pass just last month.
To us, it seems like the board put this cart a bit before the horse. Maybe the board felt like no one would object and only after they started telling everyone what a good thing it was, did they find out citizens didn’t seem to like it.
After all, there aren’t many things voters like to hear less from their elected representatives than how those representatives can improve their terms in office.
As we suggested in this space last month, we had to wonder whether the board was pursuing this change simply because it could. We found no credible benefit to making the change and expressed concern about the selfish way the board proposed it (without soliciting input from similarly elected school board representatives, the county registrar or the county electoral board).
Nevertheless, we’re glad the board went from fasttrack to backtrack.
Good representation is good representation, regardless of the term. It’s even better if the term is never part of the equation.