Stewardship is an action. It is when someone has the responsibility for taking care of another person's property or financial affairs. Looking into the past we see that stewardship first was the responsibility given to household servants to bring food and drinks to a castle dining hall. Later, the term came to indicate a household employee's responsibility for managing household or domestic affairs. Now we have environmental stewards, financial stewards and product stewards.
Stewardship is an ethic that embodies cooperative planning and management of many resources with diverse organizations, communities and others to actively engage in the interest of long-term sustainability, and often expansion or protection, as the ultimate goal(s).
When we vote for our commissioners, our council members, and mayors we are voting for stewards. People we trust to make decisions, with our resources, on our behalf. In this day and age our stewards are still our servants, our public servants. They are not our private servants. While we do have the duty to watch their stewardship, it is after all our resources, we also have a duty to not micromanage our stewards. We should realize that these resources are everyone’s and while we may know that we know what is best, these stewards often have a more holistic viewpoint. They are hearing a cacophony of voices that they must listen for a rhythm to, choosing which voices are blending well with one another and at which times to add in the next voice to bring out the best harmony, given what they have to work with. Sometimes it appears to be a no win situation, yet they are still required to find a way through, to hear the best offered, and if they don’t they know they will hear about it.
Throughout the most recent episode with the District Attorney we were reminded when this community was first trolled by the LNG companies. The Daily Astorian wouldn’t give those opposing LNG the time of day until, finally, one of the reporters who had done her research forced the issue and began doggedly following the controversy. For the longest time it appeared that the pro-LNG voices shouted over the top of the anti-LNG voices, with the Daily Astorian cheering the former side on. It was only on the forum message boards and individual blogs that one came to the understanding that there was major opposition to the LNG faction.
With this debacle with District Attorney Josh Marquis’ treatment and disdain of the budget committee and the commissioners the forum message boards is the only place where one understands the magnitude of anger and distrust that the average person has for the district attorney. Through these forums what comes through is the frustration of the clearly biased "news" reporting by local media. The ridicule that the district attorney has held the commissioners up to, commissioners elected by the constituents in the county to steward their resources, is the true “spit" and "slap" in the face of every single person in Clatsop County.
They are our stewards, entrusted with our resources. When does the trust start? What does that trust look like? When and where does it end?
4 comments:
Forrester's editorial yesterday really made me angry. Trying to silence us all that if we aren't behind our own commissioners after this "recent" development then we're either criminals or their defense lawyers. First of all when he talks about "criminals" that means every person he has pressured into a plea bargains by mounting charge after charge on them. He's talking about, according to Josh Marquis' accounting, over 4,666 people in our community. This is one eighth of our community that he has convicted of a crime! One out of every 4 of us is a criminal in his eyes! Look down your block, how many of your neighbors, family and friends does that make it that Forrester is saying are "the only ones" that are happy after this "recent" development. The "recent" development is that three people left his department. One retired and two moved on in their careers. He knew about this "recent" development months ago. He knew months ago when his office was going to be remodeled. Something he complained to get done and now is complaining that it is being done. Did he plan accordingly, as any attentive department head would have? Apparently not, since this whole thing seems to have blindsided him.
He's a friggin idiot, a bumbling baffoon, administratively. He convicts people of crimes without proving INTENT by charging crime after crime until the victim is overwhelmed and advised by his attorney to take a plea. The local defense lawyer "glad" because of what he's suffering? Most of them are upset they'll loose their meal ticket. With one eighth of the population regularly being indicted that's a sure thing. With Marquis as the DA a defense attorney is assured of always having clients. Why would they want him gone?
Whoops, had a marquis moment, that makes it 1 out of every 5 of us is a "criminal" and guilty. No longer worthy of any consideration.
What is up with the Editor of our paper? Has he gone mad, writing the rubbish? The Editor and the DA do make a good team, both are snobs!
Both are clueless about the Justice system!
The quiet before the storm. When you read the committee's FAQ page you can see they read the forums. They answer the questions they can spin. They completely ignore the questions that deal with facts. They refuse, as does the District Attorney, to answer why a county with such a small population of 35,000 prosecutes more cases than a county five times its size. If he's blaming it on the tourists to bad our businesses don't see any of that amount of people and only Marquis does. That's right, only a little over 2000 of them are from out of town. The other 5,000 are right here against local people. Still no explanation of that. A county twice our size only prosecutes 1,700 cases. WHERE ARE THESE CASES COMING FROM?
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