June 22, 2021 – Letter to County Supervisor Manu Koenig, 701 Ocean St., Santa Cruz CA 95060
Dear Supervisor Koenig,
Enclosed is the Declaration of Intervention, which is issued on behalf of all voters and future voters. We advocate open and accountable government. Briefly, that means that all candidates and elected officeholders would be required to: (1) Record and post on the internet, daily, the complete text of all of their communications concerning public business, oral and written, and (2) appear on TV every 14 days across the table from a concerned citizen, newly chosen each time by lottery, or that citizen’s appointed spokesperson, for a 30-minute one-on-one conversation.
I suggested these two reforms to you and your incumbent opponent, John Leopold, before the November 2020 election. Mr. Leopold was opposed to these reforms, but you responded by calling them “compelling”. You have now been in office for six months, so we voters and future voters now request that you introduce a county ordinance that imposes these reform requirements on all five County Supervisors.
As you know, democracy here and everywhere else is under assault from many directions. In our country the bedrock source of this threat is the awful combination of dark money power, secret political dealing and the absence of any effective means by which to hold the politician publicly accountable. Once the officeholders get elected, they are free from any meaningful scrutiny or public challenge, so we can’t feign surprise when the General Welfare routinely gets trampled and Democracy gets ever more degraded at all levels of government, especially at the federal level.
The local branch of the Grand Jury of the Republic, a new informal association of voters and future voters, will be gathering locally in your District at the Soquel Elementary School every Sunday at Noon to discuss these proposed changes, and we invite you to join us Sunday, July 4th to discuss them and whether you will be trying to enact them here in Santa Cruz County. If you are not available at that time, we ask that you send word as to when and where you would be available to discuss these matters.
For further information, see www.Voters-Intervene.org.
Yours truly,
Ed Frey, a Santa Cruz Foreperson of the Grand Jury of the Republic
Voters Intervene 