Big-Government Power Grabbers Only Have to Win Once (They Think)

On Tiverton Fact Check, Nancy Driggs describes how a faction of Tiverton government led by Council President Patricia Hilton is trying for a fourth time to give the council sole control of revenue from the Twin Rivers casino in town:

This attempt at TC restriction is a bad idea, already rejected three times by the Tiverton voters.

First rejection was when the voters elected the entire slate of nine candidates endorsed by the Tiverton Taxpayers Association (TTA) to the newly formed nine member Charter Review Commission. These candidates ran for the specific purpose of protecting voter control over casino gaming revenue and Hilton and her buddies blocked those CRC proposals from your vote.

Second rejection was in November 2018 when voters elected, as a majority of the new town council, Donna Cook, Robert Coulter, Nancy Driggs and Justin Katz, all of whom ran on a pledge to protect the FTR, and to keep the casino gaming revenue in the general fund for Tiverton voters to allocate in the FTR process. Hilton was a leader of a special recall election to remove Coulter and Katz and put her in control of the council instead.

Third rejection was when the voters rejected Hilton’s ballot question #10 in November 2018, which called for the restriction of casino gaming revenue funds for use only for certain purposes.

This time, Hilton isn’t leaving anything to chance.  She’s going to force the change through as an ordinance so voters don’t get a say as she exits office.  (She’s not running again… for now.)

The episode is a good reminder that progressives and other technocratic top-down-government types can try again and again to erase your freedoms and remove your civil rights.  They only have to win once.

At least that’s what they think.  Once Hilton has established the principle that casino money can be controlled by ordinance — rather than with a vote of the people at a referendum or a charter change — it only takes a change of the council to rework the whole thing.  Don’t be surprised if an election or two down the road is followed by refund checks to taxpayers or something instead of a council slush fund.

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