Those of you who don’t read El Paso’s English language daily may have missed this column by adjunct lecturer in government at El Paso Community College Bert M. Diamondstein.
One of the cornerstones of democracy at all levels of government has been the exercise of responsible stewardship of the public interest on the part of elected officials and the management/boards of public entities.
Issues in local government over the past several months calls into question just how responsible this stewardship of the public interest has actually been.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that this stewardship has been sadly lacking in several instances and in addition reflects an indifference, verging on contempt, of the idea of public accountability which is so crucial to the democratic process.
. . .
Collectively, we need to get back to the old-fashioned idea that public service involves placing the interests of the community above personal interests – whatever these personal interests might be.
Furthermore, public service is not a license to treat accountability as irrelevant because someone is now “playing in the sandbox with the big boys and girls.”
With this attitude, the average working El Pasoan no longer counts except when it comes time to pick up the bill for follies such as those mentioned above.
In the part of his column I’ve excised, Mr. Diamondstein enumerates specific instances where our elected officials have dropped the ball.
Hear, hear, Mr. Diamondstein.
I am curious as to what you excised/deleted from the guest editorial. You see, those of us who are not subscribed to the Times cannot see the online version without paying a fee. So, it does little good for you to quote him only in part. How are we to know what he specified?
Mr. Dungan, do you know how to anonymize your browser? With Chrome, you hit CTRL N. For Firefox, hit CTRL SHIFT P. I understand that before the railroads got to town some computers used a browser called Explorer, but that is the stuff of legends, and it may just be a myth.
If your browser is anonymized, it won’t accept cookies, so the web gods won’t know how many times you’ve already visited the Times website this month.
I hope that helps out.
You know what they say: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he sits around drinking beer all day.
Well, now, learn something new everyday…let me try that for my visits to the local site formerly known as a newspaper.