-->
Search the ArchivesNavigationContact InformationThe Citizen Newspapers For Advertising Information Email us your news! For technical difficulties |
Misdirected anger on county legal feesPeople who criticize county commissioners like Greg Dunn and Linda Wells for the county’s high legal fees in their litigation with the sheriff are barking up the wrong tree. There is nothing wrong for anybody to have a difference of opinion with someone else. It happens all the time. What is wrong is to make it impossible to resolve the problem unless and until each side has spent months and months and a ton of money trying to win. In other words, our legal system is way too expensive and wasteful. Yet a lot of people criticize the county commissioners, seemingly wanting them to give up on matters they deem important. Far too many people in this country give up their rights because the court system makes it too expensive for them to stand up for them. (Eric Maxwell stood up for his right to put up political signs, but then he’s a lawyer and wealthy.) So why aren’t there people out there complaining about our lousy legal system, which is so slow and so expensive? Most well-managed businesses now seek to bypass our judicial system by inserting provisions for arbitration in their contracts. Arbitration is not now a possibility for the disputes between our sheriff and county commissioners. Why is that? It is largely because we elect state representatives (and senators) who are mental dwarves. No imagination. No creativity. Often a limited education. Hung up on doctrinaire medieval issues. An intelligent state representative would propose legislation to provide for the resolution of disputes like our commissioners and sheriff are having through a hearing officer of the Department of Community Affairs. The whole thing could be resolved within six weeks, at little expense to the taxpayers. We elect dumb state representatives, and we get dumb state laws, focusing on dumb things like naming every mile of highway in the state after some dumb legislators, some dead in body and all brain dead. We shouldn’t blame our county commissioners, or even the sheriff, for the huge legal fees we taxpayers are having to pay. We should put the blame squarely on our state legislators who have left us saddled with a judicial system that is a disgrace. mapleleaf's blog | login to post comments |