This “Your Views” letter to the editor appeared in the Scottsdale Republic Friday 30 March:
Minority voice nixed Plan
Bullfrogs sit on lily pads, making loud bellowing sounds, trying to attract something, usually a mate.
Some political bloggers, pundits and Scottsdale Council members imitate a bullfrog in many ways. Saying the General Plan update (defeated at the ballot box) does not reflect the residents’ vision of Scottsdale is bull frogging.
To understand the loud noise: The city reported that 59 percent of the population, or 140,168 people, were registered voters in the 2010 general election. The voter count for the Proposition 430 election totaled 26,922, or 19.2 percent of the city’s registered voters.
That means 9.9 percent of the registered voters took exception to the General Plan update. This minuscule percentage hardly qualifies as “residents of Scottsdale” have spoken. We’re likely to hear more bull frogging, unfortunately, between April and November!
— Diana Moorman, Scottsdale
Aside from the fact that Ms. Moorman obviously graduated from the Erik Filsinger school of “The Voters Got It Wrong,” her rhetoric denies the fact that this is the way democracy works. It also denies the fact that the voters who supported the General Plan changes were an even SMALLER percentage of the residents of Scottsdale.
Beyond that, a not-insignificant percentage of our population isn’t registered to vote because they aren’t old enough to vote.
Proposition 430 was defeated by a majority of votes cast. The rules are the rules and if they’d worked more in her favor, Ms. Moorman might have been doing some bullfrogging of her own. Unfortunately, she got gigged instead.
2 Comments
John:
I don’t think the defeat of Prop 430 gives us any indication of what the majority of Scottsdale residents think. Two very small minorities of Scottsdale voters offered their opinions and those that opposed Prop 430 were in the majority. The lesson for everyone should be to get and vote!
Bob
P.S. Note the use of “voter” versus “resident.”
Ms. Moorman would seem to share that opinion, and you both have a valid point. However, I’d much rather the people educate themselves on the issues BEFORE they vote!
I have no doubt that if more of the pro-430 voters really understood what was going on, more would have voted against it.
But, as with every election, apathy isn’t a reason to change the result.