Tomorrow’s Blowing Rock: County commissioners election overhaul long overdue

By David Rogers. BLOWING ROCK, N.C. — According to the website, Carolina Demography, unaffiliated voters now outnumber those belonging to any political party, whether Republican, Democratic, Green or Libertarian.

As one of those unaffiliated registered voters disgusted by today’s partisan politics, I don’t have a partisan axe to grind. That said, the recent passage into law of Senate Bill 759 by the North Carolina General Assembly is a breath of fresh air when it comes to representative government.

Last year I did some research on what forms of county government were present in North Carolina counties where there is a college or university with an enrollment greater than 5,000. Long ago, it seems, most counties with a larger institution of higher education recognized the potential danger for concentrating excessive voting power where county commissioners were all elected “at large” by all voters in the county. In most cases where there is a large college or university, county commissioners not only have to reside in the district they represent, but they are also only elected by the voters within that district. This removes the unwarranted influence of not only the biggest town vs. the rest of the county but also that bloc of university voters.

Watauga County, historically, has been one of those jurisdictions where all voters voted for all commissioners, at-large. As a result, voters in District 1, which includes all or at least most of Boone and Appalachian State, have heavily influenced the election of representatives in all of the other four districts because of this concentration of voting power. Whether consciously or subconsciously, every elected commissioner over time has considered the interests of Boone perhaps even more than the interests of the district they purportedly represent, even if they won’t admit it.

… they have often made decisions that are Boone-centric, often at the expense of the other districts.

Approximately 65 percent of Watauga County’s full-time population lives outside of the Boone town limits, but that population is scattered throughout those other four districts. Not all of the non-Boone districts have equal populations, but assuming they did each would have roughly 16 percent of the county’s voting population, compared to 35 percent in Boone. And that Boone population does not even include the number of registered voters who are students at the university. Although they are registered to vote in Boone for convenience, many of those students are not on Boone’s U.S. Census rolls as full-time residents.

Through the years, the county commissioners elected at large have given lip service to the idea that they vote on decisions that benefit the entire county but that wears thin when, through those same years, they have often made decisions that are Boone centric — often at the expense of the other four districts.

If commissioners were elected by the people in the districts they represent, what is the likelihood that the county would have spent $40+ million on a Boone-centric recreation center that needs to be subsidized by county taxpayers year after year? As nice of a facility as it is, I venture to say it would be a lot different if voted on by a board of commissioners put together under Senate Bill 759. Perhaps it would be more modest, or not built at all before other neglected priorities are addressed.

The model solutions for EMS are all around us. It is not rocket science.

And if each commissioner were elected solely by the people living in the district he or she represents, I offer that the county’s Boone-centric EMS operations would have been done away with a long time ago. Only the Boone Fire District receives ambulance transport service that reliably meets or exceeds national standards, while the taxpayers in the other fire districts are subsidizing Boone’s great service but receiving substandard EMS coverage at the same time. If the four non-Boone commissioners were looking out for their constituents, don’t you think there would be a higher priority for the health and safety of everyone in the county, perhaps even as a higher priority than a recreation center?

The model solutions for EMS coverage are all around us. We only have to look at Caldwell County, Alexander County, Catawba County and Cleveland County, among others, to understand the benefits of a county-owned service. It is not rocket science, even if our current board of commissioners and county management don’t get it.

At its core, representative government is supposed to be… well, representative. You should be elected by the people you represent. If not, why have districts at all? We applaud the work that Senator Ralph Hise and his team did in sponsoring this bill and shepherding it through both houses of the General Assembly.

With the passage of Senate Bill 759, the four districts outside of District 1 have supposedly had their boundaries redrawn to get pretty much the same population in each. There may be some awkwardness in some precincts, like Brushy Fork, which reportedly may be part of three different districts, but the logistics will undoubtedly be worked out. Few pieces of legislation are perfect and this one may well have its flaws — but it is a good start in finally achieving true representative government in Watauga County.