Orange County Commissioner Penny Rich takes issue with the phrase "minority report" in today's Raspberry in The Chapel Hill News. We razzed the former Town Council woman for calling on her former council colleagues to ask for the resignation of Del Snow as chairwoman of the Planning Board. Snow recently spoke at a county commissioners meeting, asking the county to delay the start of the half-cent sales tax for transit.
"Now it is unusual for one government’s adviser to speak to another government, especially without letting the first government know," we wrote. "But if sharing a minority report of an appointed advisory board is a firing offense, we’ve got more serious problems than a breach of protocol. Rich is no political novice; she and the rest of the commissioners were more than capable of taking Snow’s comments in context and assigning them whatever merit they wanted."
For the record, Rich says she can take the Raspberry -- she even thanked us for it -- but she also says it's not accurate to call Snow's comments a "minority report." A minority report technically is a report by a small number of group members on the losing end of a vote, a formal way to get a dissenting opinion out there. We know that, and perhaps we should have said minority viewpoint.
Rich says she welcomes minority reports from advisory boards and doesn't want to squelch or be perceived as squelching community discussion -- our main point. The planning board's opposition to the regional transit plan was unanimous, she notes.
Her concern, she says, was with Snow leapfrogging her board and the town's elected leaders to press her case with the county commissioners. Snow didn't tell her board or anyone at Town Hall that she was going to speak to the commissioners. The Town Council supported the regional plan and the first they heard about Snow's end run was on the radio, she says. (OK, Rich didn't use the phrase "end run." That was me just now.)
"Really it was a pretty bold move," Rich says. "I have to tell you I know he (Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt) was disturbed by this too. It was bad. It was a bad thing to do. My opinion."
Reasonable people can disagree, we said in our Raspberry. Tell us what you think here, in a letter to editor@newsobserver.com or on my Facebook page. Thanks.
Comments
I don't know anything about
Mon, 01/21/2013 - 04:38 — reasonableI don't know anything about Del Snow or this particular issue but past experience tells me that Penny Rich abuses her position of power at the drop of a hat including using her power to subtly threaten someone for the crime of having a different opinion than her own.
"I don't know anything about Del Snow or this particular issue"
Mon, 01/21/2013 - 13:56 — jasonbakerAnd, enough said.
I know both Del and Penny personally, so I'm not getting in the middle of this. But I can tell you that it would be much easier to resolve the issue if people who didn't know anything about the situation or the parties involved didn't start hurling stones blindly.
You should find out about
Mon, 01/21/2013 - 09:59 — ClaudiusYou should find out about Del Snow and this particular issue before snarking on Ms. Rich then. That would be the reasonable thing to do.
Why should I find out about
Mon, 01/21/2013 - 16:57 — reasonableWhy should I find out about Del Snow and this particular issue when I'm not commenting on Del Show or this particular issue? I'm not snarking on Ms. Rich, I'm simply relating past experiences. Don't blame me. I don't force her to treat people that disagree with her like garbage.
"I don't force her to treat
Mon, 01/21/2013 - 21:04 — Claudius"I don't force her to treat people that disagree with her like garbage."
Get some help, dude.
Okay, I'll caveat that. I
Wed, 01/23/2013 - 02:45 — reasonableOkay, I'll caveat that. I can't safely conclude that she treats everyone that way but she did treat me that way. And I was (a) a powerless nobody and (b) someone with a view she disagreed with. And I don't think that's a coincidence. There is a culture of intolerance in this area towards anyone that thinks outside the narrow local mainstream and who isn't in a position to offer resistance to the local power structure. And I'm not even talking about something like being a Republican, although in a town that was truly tolerant even being a Republican would be tolerated too. For a place that prides itself on tolerance it's remarkably intolerant and such a sentiment is especially chilling coming from those that wield political power.
"Reasonable" sounds reasonable to me.
Wed, 01/23/2013 - 10:04 — ActLocalIt does boil down to intolerance when people are publicly chastened or punished for their views. What's unreasonable, is telling you to seek [mental] help for relatng your experience. It's one thing to disagree, but quite another to try to personally damage your opponent. But, that's precisely what Penny Rich did.
Manipulative Control Freak
Sat, 01/19/2013 - 09:03 — ActLocalPenny Rich resorted to a process argument to retaliate against a active public participant, because she did not like the political message. Sounds more than a little tyrannical.
Thumbs Up for Penny Rich
Wed, 01/16/2013 - 16:24 — ClaudiusIt seems to me that Ms. Rich has a much broader and more well-informed perspective on this issue. She has not only served our community as a county commissioner and town council member but has also sat on several advisory boards as well. Her long-term dedication to public service is proof that she puts the well being of the community above her own personal beliefs.
Ms. Snow's perspective, on the other hand, seems to me to be myopic and self-serving. If she were really thinking about what's best for the community, she would have put her personal feelings aside and accepted what had already been decided by us loud and clear - that the half-cent transit tax is a done deal.
Crying over spilt milk doesn't really help anyone.
Wielding political power
Mon, 01/21/2013 - 04:42 — reasonableWielding political power isn't service. Service is doing something that no one else wants to do.