Yesterday’s Pima County Supervisors meeting was, in a word, insane.
Taking a Tuesday morning off twice a month to attend a Supervisors meeting, as it turns out, is impractical for those of us who work to pay the taxes that support the County’s, ahem, largesse. Fortunately for us working stiffs, the County webcasts each meeting, so we can observe from a distance. Also, we can stitch together chains of profanities wholly unsuitable for any other human to hear.
Yesterday, I swore several blue streaks as a five-and-a-half hour meeting droned on. Three hours of that meeting disappeared during the call to the audience as one individual after another begged the County to stop Monsanto. (One especially vicious streak I hurled at a mother who put her two children up to speak to the Board about that company. Neither of those kids could have been ten years old. Shameful.)
You know Monsanto. It’s that company that Bayer is buying for a reasonable amount considering its market value, that same company that, apparently, is more evil than Hitler’s, Kim Jong Un’s, and Pol Pot’s darkest fantasies combined.
Admittedly, I do wonder about modified crops, chemicals infiltrating into the food supply, the seemingly inexplicable explosion in food allergies, gluten-sensitivity disorders, cancer, and other diseases. I wonder about the loss of bee colonies and the possibilities of a parasitic organism or a pesticide vanquishing colonies. When both sides toss around studies and papers like Pima County politicians toss around favors, not much can separate the credible from the ludicrous. With one side proving as emotional, frantic, and agitated as the global warming zealots, and with the preponderance of junk science on both sides of that issue as on this issue, the topic becomes instantly and powerfully polarizing. And our society has forgotten that the truth, most often, lies somewhere in the middle.
(If either side of the debate was truly worried about feeding the growing population of the planet, instead of defending or defeating a large multinational–multinational, a word that many of the panicked speakers used like an epithet–don’t you think that side would work earnestly and fervently to stem the unconscionable amount of waste in our food supply, and make that a rallying cry, a mantra for all to chant?)
Regardless, when our federal government pays farmers not to grow crops, the remaining farmers who bear the burden of producing sufficient food and who must produce despite razor-thin margins will take any advantage offered. How can one ascribe the trait of evil to an inanimate corporation?
Most of the speakers were misinformed or ignorant of the issue before the Supervisors, as speaker after speaker begged the County to “stop Monsanto”. The company already purchased land in Avra Valley–legally and legitimately–from an influential family. The question to the County was to what extent should we reduce the tax burden on Monsanto. A few speakers understood that, most allowed themselves to fall to the furor.
Three hours–and eight paragraphs–leading to the point: Ally Miller is still the only voice of the taxpayer on the current Board of Supervisors. Sharon Bronson will defend Chuck Huckelberry–when she isn’t already busy celebrating his birthday, which was her first order of business for the day. The Bronson-Huckelberry machine has halted Rosemont Copper in its tracks, but chooses to lay down and roll over as Monsanto purchases land from a crony. What doesn’t jibe in my mind is how a left-leaning Board wouldn’t want to make it highly unfriendly for the boogeyman that they call Monsanto to do business in the area. Something doesn’t add up.
Ally asked pointed questions and got little support. The only voice joining her in questioning Monstanto was Richard Elias, following the environmental lobby’s line of reasoning instead of addressing questions for the good of the constituency.
As the Supervisors finally moved on to other topics, Ally was the only Supervisor to stop and ask salient–and glaringly obvious–questions about the various matters before the Board. That is, before Sharon Bronson quickly gaveled in every vote and shut down every one of Miller’s questions.
Nothing says “many happy returns, Chuck” like the status quo wrapped up in shiny paper with a big bow on top. Our fellow electorate has gifted us with four more years of the same madness we’ve had under the Bronson-Huckelberry machine for decades. That means that in County administration just like in the food supply, you can continue to count on Chuck not to lift a finger to reduce waste.