By:  Diane Benjamin

County Board elections do not pretend to be nonpartisan like the City elections do.  Although it’s hard to tell that some members of the County Board are Republicans, the GOP and Democrats hold different views of what government should be.  Candidates that will be on the November ballot shouldn’t be hiding what party they belong to.

One candidate is.  I have the campaign literature Victoria Harris is distributing.  It’s red-white-and blue, but nowhere does it say she is a Democrat.

It also doesn’t say she voted against an amendment last November to use some of the County’s $50,000,000 surplus instead of raising taxes.  From the minutes of the 11-17-2015 meeting:  https://blnnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/11-17-2016-minutes.pdf

First Harris supported the amendment:

Later she changed her mind when several Board members expressed concern about last-minute amendments:

Walking and chewing gum seems too difficult for a few of the members.

See this story:  https://blnnews.com/2016/03/24/county-50000000-in-reserves/

This is one side of the Harris literature:

County meetings are held at times few people can attend.  Most of the work is done in committees making getting information almost impossible.  Whatever is passed by a committee is usually passed by the entire Board because they want to trust the committees to have done their due diligence.

Citizens don’t find out about action until it’s too late to change.

At the very least citizens are entitled to know what party candidates are running in before they get to the ballot box.

Harris has a Republican challenger for the District 7 seat:  newcomer Jacob Beard.

The Board needs some young representation since it’s his generation that will be saddled with the actions of this Board.

Just to be fair, this is the other side of the Harris literature: