To all Century Villagers, who support reason above all’

Stew Richland

Is UCO so incredibly complicated an organization to run that it takes more than the two terms to fully digest and understand the intricacies of what needs to be done to keep UCO running efficiently. 

All efficient leadership rely on their staff to help them cope with the volume of issues they must process.  Many people will say that we live in a free country and by supporting term limits you are taking our rights away.  Perhaps in an ideal world this premise would be true.  Unfortunately, this is not the reality that we face here in Century Village.  I contend that term limits protect us from a so called career politician, that is ego driven and will do anything it takes to get re-elected.

The argument that it takes more than two terms to get things done is ridiculous.  Most of our Presidents have moved up from the volunteer ranks.  First as a committee member, than  Vice-President and finally tossing their hat in the ring  for the top job.  

It has been a tradition in Century Village to term limit the president of UCO.  For the many years that this Village operated, no elected president challenged this by-law, until Dave Israel became president.  He broke the tradition two years ago and now he has a fourth term. 

Richard Sherman, a Revolutionary  War leader and a member of Congress,  shared his insight on this issue when he said that all elected officials should  “return home and mix with the people”  to get the sense of how the Village environment is changing.   On the national scene, a large number of Americans believe that career legislators or presidents of smaller entities have created a gaping chasm between themselves and the overall population.  This is what is happening here in Century Village. For a democracy to work there must be a government by and for all the people. This means that all sides must be heard.

The dominance of incumbency prevents the rise of new voices here in Century Village.  Comfortable careerists as we have here in Century Village often end up corrupted by power, blinded by their own ego’s , surround themselves with impish supporters who fear being “fired” from the administration that they support any and all schemes that the leader supports. 

On 7/11/2008 Dave Israel Posted the following:

2) I was/am opposed to removing term limits; Autocrats abhor Term Limits because they preclude their becoming permanently ensconced in their Autocratic positions

This is exactly the reason why we need term limits here in the Village.  It is obvious that our current UCO President has ignored his own advice and has morphed into the autocrat that he so vehemently opposed.  

Like Lincoln Steffens a  leading Muckraker, a form of  investigative journalism, who wrote a series of articles entitled the “Shame of the Cities,”  we “gadflys” of Century Village will follow in this tradition and to inform, enlighten, and educate our residents on all the issues that impact our way of life here in Century Village.

To comment on this posting respond at:  phyllisrichland.blogspot.com