 |
||
 |
|
|
 |
||||||
 |
||||||
Giving power back to the citizens of Damascus Oregon |
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
DAMASCUS THE MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN OREGON ?
HOW ABOUT THE NATION ?
Look at the crime statistics and Damascus appears to be a quiet little town. But look a little deeper and you find the shocking truth. We have a trend that could make Damascus number one in the nation.
Not to worry your city council has things (or you) under control.
Using a tool called the "Emergency Clause" when passing a city ordinance the council can deal with grave threats to its citizens. The clause is attached to the ordinance and states, “The city council declares it necessary for the preservation of the public health, welfare, and safety for this ordinance to take effect immediately upon its passage and therefore declares an emergency.” This clause has an additional benefit for the councilors, it makes the ordinance effective immediately upon adoption.
Normally an ordinance would be effective 30 days after council passes it and citizens can bring it to a vote by a petition referring it to voters. This referral must be done in the time between the council passing the ordinance and its effective date.
By attaching an "Emergency Clause" to an ordinance and making it effective immediately the time allowed for citizens to refer the ordinance is cut to zero. That's right, not even 60 seconds.
Quite handy for keeping those darn citizens from voting on issues.
Damascus was established approximately 100 years before it's incorporation in November of 2004 and in that 100 years, it appears to have had no reportable threatening emergencies. Granted in the 1800's there may not have been anyone to report an emergency to. However, since incorporation (about 50 months) the Damascus city council has declared an emergency no less than 11 times. That works out to a declared emergency about every 5 months.
Having passed 31 ordinances as of this writing, the Damascus City Council is using the emergency clause on 35% of all ordinances. It appears Damascus is the most emergency oriented city in the state.
Given this trend we should be in a constant state of emergency in about 5 years.
This may be alarming to citizens, but for the city councilors it is nice to have the those pesky elections out of the way. It streamlines the process you know. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
OUR CITY TAX DOLLARS AT WORK click here |
||||||||||||||||||||
DAMASCUS THE MOST DANGEROUS CITY IN THE NATION? click here |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
"Road to Bigger, Better Damascus Leads to Dead End" --Oregonian January 16, 2009 |
||||||||||||||||||||
A dream that's coming back to bite us--Oregonian January 24, 2009 |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|