El Dorado County now stands at a critical juncture.
Sitting squarely at the center of this new crossroads is our Board of Supervisors who determine this County’s financial solvency and help shape its community identity. The question now is, “Who do these elected officials we elected to represent us actually represent?”
Is it the dialysis patient who relies on snowplowed roads to reach his weekly medical appointments and receive life-saving care; or be the struggling senior who depends on supplemental health care and food assistance to make ends meet? Is it the County workers, without a contract for two years, who now must choose between enduring hours-long commutes or sleeping in their cars because they aren’t paid enough to live where they work?
Or, will this Board continue to divert precious taxpayer dollars year after year to an elite group of already well-paid County executives?
Sadly, we now have an answer to our question. Today, we have a Board who callously ignores the pressing needs of the many while brazenly doling out raises to a select few.
This is why we createdHold El Dorado Accountable: We see this County headed in the wrong direction.
We see a Board of Supervisors who has grown increasingly out of touch with the needs of the people they were elected to represent and continues to defund the critical services we all need – services that disproportionally affect our most vulnerable residents.
We see fewer snowplows on our roads, fewer experienced staff handling emergency dispatch calls, and fewer senior and youth care services – just to name a few.
We are a coalition of concerned residents, business owners, community leaders, and government workers – taxpayers just like you – who are standing up to preserve our County’s truly special quality of life, and calling out elected officials who seem more interested in cutting behind-the-scenes deals that benefit the few rather than building a community where we can all live and thrive.
We are your neighbors. We shop at the same stores, eat at the same restaurants, and send our children to the same schools. For those of us who can afford to live here, we do so for the same reasons you do: We love our community.
We want an El Dorado County where our streets are plowed in winter, our trails are cleared in summer, our emergency calls are answered, and our treasured Jeepers Jamboree goes off without a hitch.
When it comes to our local Board of Supervisors, we all want the same thing: elected officials we can trust to have our backs.
Unfortunately, this Board has violated our trust, and they should be held accountable for their actions.
We’re fighting for greater accountability, transparency, and fairness so the people who work in El Dorado can afford to live in the community they serve. When that happens, everybody wins.
Right now, skilled and experienced workers are leaving El Dorado County in record numbers for better-paying jobs in surrounding counties. That’s forcing us to constantly hire and re-hire, train and retrain, and certify and re-certify new teams with the knowledge that they will likely be forced out the door like their predecessors.
When this keeps happening, El Dorado County loses.
Thirty years ago, El Dorado County taxpayers overwhelmingly approved an amendment toCharter Section 504, which provided for automatic pay increases ONLY for sworn peace officers — NOT non-sworn peace officer employees. Unfortunately, this Board didn’t get the message — or they chose to ignore it — and went ahead and spent public dollars to give pay raises to a privileged few.
We need to stop the automatic pay raises this Board has rubber-stamped for an elite few insiders.
We need this Board to stop putting the special interests of a select few above the community, and startallocating our tax dollars to fund the critical services we need.
Join us to remind this Board that they were elected to represent all County residents and employees. Let’s unite to let these elected officials know their backroom cronyism, public hypocrisy, and blatant defiance of the will of voters is just plain wrong.
Shannon Starr is the Local 3 Publican Employee Business Agent and a Hold El Dorado Accountable Coalition Member who authored this community commentary that was submitted to Folsom Times. She can be reached atsstarr@oe3.org.
Hold El Dorado Accountable is a coalition of El Dorado County residents, business owners, community leaders, and public-service employees, including Operating Engineers Local 3, AFSCME Public Employees Union Local 1, the Taxpayers Association of El Dorado County, and the Sacramento Central Labor Council.
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