Northern California County Board Votes For Secession From State

[1979Shocker]

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2013/09/04/northern-california-county-board-votes-for-secession-from-state/

YREKA (CBS/AP) — A far Northern California county where residents have complained they lack representation at the state capitol wants to separate from California.

The Record Searchlight of Redding reports that the Siskiyou County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 on Tuesday in favor of a declaration for secession.

According to the newspaper, residents of the majority Republican county lobbied the board in August to consider secession. In addition to a lack of representation in Sacramento, they cited concerns about water rights and a rural fire prevention fee approved by the legislature.

Before voting on something like this, they should have read the Constitution, which says that “no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”

[SubGod22]

But wouldn't this be step one in doing such a thing?

[1979Shocker]

Yeah, I guess they have to start some place. There were some counties in Colorado doing the same thing. I think it was like 3 or 4 counties.

[wu_shizzle]

Putting Northern California with Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington would probably make everyone happy.

Let Portland and Seattle consummate their relationship by finally sharing a state.

[WuDrWu]

I know it hurts to think the GOP could get some gains for you, but I'm telling you, if push comes to shove and a handful of major markets keep pushing their agenda on the rest of the country, the right controls an awful lot of state houses and senates, and getting 2/3rd and or 3/4ths of the states in addition to congress is not totally out of the question.

[SubGod22]

I'd mentioned the North Colorado talk a while back. I find these things interesting and I understand the feelings of them not being heard. Hell, Wichita is the largest city in the state and I know in the past there have been complaints about how Topeka seems to view those of us in this area. It's got to be a lot worse in certain other areas like Western Kansas where it's mostly farming and small cities.

I've sometimes wondered if everyone would be better off if some of our more western states weren't so damn big in size. It's really easy for a number of people to get lost in the mix.

[SB Shock]

4 counties in Maryland want to form a new state - called west Maryland. I just talked to a guy from Michigan who said part of their state want to break away and become a new state. This has happened before - though it was 150 years again when West Virginia was formed.

[SubGod22]

It doesn't surprise me that these things are happening. The odds of any of it becoming official are extremely slim at best, but many in this nation, and it goes on both sides to a degree, have been alienated from the government and don't feel they're truly represented. The two party system has been abused to the point where most seem to feel like they have no choice but to vote for the lesser of two evils. Which usually means your representative doesn't really represent you. Career politicians don't get it. Hell, politicians were never supposed to make a career out of it, but they've increased their pay to the point that they can. On top of that, they have so many things paid for by outside sources and make much more than their congressional income. Few of them are really of the people anymore. And it's not just DC. It happens at the state level as well. Good people who want to run can't afford it and we just keep electing people that have little grasp of what it's like to be the average American.

I will say that at least in KS, most of the elected leaders, at the state level, have real jobs to go back to as they're only a part time legislature. But that doesn't mean that they're immune from all of the above. It'll be interesting to see how many more areas start talking like this though. It appears that we have CA, CO, MD and MI. It seems a year or two ago I heard of another area of CA that also wanted to do this. If nothing else, it just goes to show how little the people feel they're being represented by their representatives.

[60Shock]

Let me put this on a smaller level and perhaps the pitfalls of breaking up states into smaller entities will be easier to see.

The population of the Daytona Beach, FL metro area is around 212,000 and it consist of 7 separate towns including Daytona Beach (65,000) Ormond Beach (40,000), Port Orange (60,000), Holly Hill (12,000), South Daytona Beach (15,000), Daytona Beach Shores (17,000 ), and Ponce Inlet (3,000).

Unless you spot the city sign, you never know when you leave one and enter the other.

Problem is, every blasted one of them has a complete city government consisting of mayors, city managers (with all their admin back-ups to include financial advisors, budget people and payroll, police and fire departments, planning commissions, and staffs of lawyers, etc.

And, of course,no one wants to give up their little fiefdoms, power, old boy networks, duplications of jobs, inefficiencies, graft, and join together to work as one.

It is a horrible inefficient system at the city level and would be more so at the state level. Creating a new state would at least require adding a completely new and expensive new government, with all of the required services certainly at the state and possibly at additional county levels.

And we haven't even addressed the absolute need down the road for a Universiy and a State University to play football and basketball, and all the other sports.

[SubGod22]

Here's a bit on the Western Maryland Initiative with some brief mentions of similar movements in Northern Colorado, Northern California, the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, Western Arizona and South Florida.

[SpanglerFan316]

http://www.humboldt.edu/sojmc/