After attending yet another one of those "local" meetings tonight, where it is clear that the "Board" has been bought and paid for, I looked around me and realized there were only three or four other residents in attendance. Other attendees? Well there were a lot of engineers, including the County Engineer; there was a Deputy, there were two business type individuals hoping to seal their trucking contract...and that was it...
Having attending a County Commission meeting just last week, where "elected officials" from other locales were there in support of this project or that, and there were numerous business interests represented, attorneys and whatnot, looking around the audience, I saw five or six other residents in attendance.
Reading national news, and seeing the words "pay to play" utilized in as much as the Governor of Illinois...
made me realize that "pay to play" was also a phrase utilized in several local corruption scandals. It doesn't start with a Governor's Office, it doesn't even start with the President of the USA, or the Senate or House leaders or Committee Chairs, it starts right in your own backyard.
All of these years fighting community battles, I realize just how little the "community" participates. Most say they have no time, they have other obligations, or government will do as they will do whether "I" participate or not, and some just say they just didn't know until it was way too late...
When I review this awesome site, where so many are in tuned with the outrages happening at the top echelons of government, I wonder how many are in tune with their own local community, their own county, their own taxing districts....(you know all of those bodies you pay taxes to in one form or another)
Corruption doesn't start at the top and trickle down, it starts at the bottom, creates a political way of life, and is dominating every form and fashion of government as you know it, from elected officials, to the staff they utilize, to the various "analysis" utilized for making decisions whether based upon fact or not....
In thinking about the term "Pay to Play", realize it could just begin with "park improvements", who gets the contract, who becomes employed, or fired...Its Your Park....are you really watching?