Is Cascade a Democracy?

You don’t think Cascade is an undemocratic outlier? Guess again. The reason Cascade ended up with an ordinance that says Council people have to run on their records every two years is because that’s what most towns with decent democracies do. The company that put our ordinances online made a template, presumed we had a democracy, so the glitch. In response, Councilwoman Megan Oliphant said she needed “two years to get up to speed on the issues.” Well, I was on council once and it took me two months—I came up with the list of questions about rebar & concrete and picked the brains of everybody that knew. If Oliphant isn’t willing to expend the effort, she should resign. If she’s not smart enough, ditto. That’s not the only problem on the Cascade City Council: with the mic off before a council meeting one night early this year, Mike Delaney told me: “This is NOT a democracy; it’s a Republic, and these people (he gestures to the rest of council) and I were elected to make the decisions. OK, King Mike. Yeah, I was the one who discovered this glitch, and I have called Secretary of State Paul Pate’s office to try to get some help in putting this up for the vote of the people, so here’s hoping they care more about democracy in Cascade than the people on council.