By Wally Carlson

What do you do when your county Democratic Party abandons the core values of capitalism and private property and opts for centralized government control, forsaking a formula that has made America the envy of the world? Centralized government control is last century, the territory of China, the old USSR and socialistic European governments.

What do you do when county government is treated like a mom and pop grocery that puts a “Gone Fishing” sign in the window each Friday?

What do you do when the Kitsap Democratic Party bludgeons the budget with across-the-board cuts instead of having the guts to make strategic cuts and refuses to find savings by doing performance audits?

What happens to a county where the voice of dissent is never heard above the bobblehead nodding of three “peas in a pod” county commissioners? Has anybody ever seen any discord or discussion in a commissioner meeting? Democracy at work?

What can you say about the Cenral Kitsap commissioner who believes that “private property rights just get in the way of the public good” or that “Kitsap citizens will accept toll road because we already have pay for ferries and bridges to leave Kitsap.”

Why does the Democratic Party remain silent when the county gives away land, bought with taxpayer money, to private corporations like the YMCA, when land is rezoned without even notifying property owners? When land use projects die in planning because of confusing and conflicting rules? When there is no trust in county government because there is no long-term commitment or accountability? What you get is stagnation.

I’ve been a Democrat since I voted for McGovern when I was teaching school in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. I’ve been partial to the national Democratic Party in the past, the party that pioneered minimum wage acts, civil rights, equal pay acts and child labor laws. Democrats have always been the champions of the downtrodden and the little guy, but not here in Kitsap County. Kitsap County Democrats are champions of big business and bigger government.

I have tried during the last two primary elections to pull the Democratic Party to the political center where capitalism thrives. Judging from the voting results, Democrats have no interest in anything besides the status quo.

There is no plank in the Kitsap County Democratic party that extols efficient, accountable and transparent government. You can see the disbelief even in the “handpicked citizens” during the budget meetings as they find the commissioners have no clue how they spend the people’s money. What Kitsap has is an elected totalitarian government, which is dangerous.

All politics are local.

I no longer believe in the “socialist philosophies” of the Kitsap County Democratic Party. There has to be a voice of dissent in a healthy democracy.

I endorse Abby Burlingame for Kitsap County commissioner.

Wally Carlson, of East Bremerton, was a Democratic primary candidate for Pos. 3 on the Kitsap County Board of Commissioners