Plain Talk With Rob Port

Participatory politics is what makes our democracy work, but it also supposes that those who are participating are doing so in good faith. How do we handle people who want to use the tools of participation -- things like open records requests and open meetings -- as soap boxes for narcissistic jeremiads? What if the people participating aren't intent on being constructive, but instead are out to just burn everything down (figuratively speaking)? The City of Dickinson will soon hold a special election in which the incumbent, city commissioner Jason Fridrich, who was recalled to the ballot by petitioners, will run unopposed after the leader of the petitioning campaign, a local gadfly prolifically active on social media and in the public comment period at city meetings, chose not to run. This exercise in futility will cost the taxpayers of Dickinson tens of thousands of dollars, and what does it accomplish? Satisfying the ego of a minority faction of malcontents? "I bite my tongue," Dickinson Mayor Scott Decker