Milton Coalition Blog Readers:

Happy Independence Day!  Yes, after a hiatus of over a year, I am reactivating the Milton Coalition Blog in the run-up to Milton’s 2025 municipal elections.  Minimally, as with the 2021 and 2023 elections, I will post a page that provides useful links (without any commentary) that will allow voters to obtain information on ALL candidates running in the 2025 election for city council and for mayor . . . a one-stop shop for election and candidate information.

I will wait to see how the campaign unfolds to determine how much additional reporting and analysis I provide to blog readers.  This is my tenth year of blogging on Milton city politics and government.  I am guided my three principles: 1) telling citizens the unvarnished truth, employing only facts and logic, 2) advocating for good governance, especially strict adherence to the rule-of-law, and 3) promoting the prerogatives of citizens (over the priorities of Milton’s ever-lurking special interests). That’s it.  It is worth noting that I draw heavily from primary source materials and provide these source materials to my readers (to allow them to draw their own conclusions).  I suppose that is why my detractors have never—NOT ONCE—ever written me to dispute anything written at the blog.  (Note:  My advocacy is self-financed and has cost me over $22,000, not to mention costing me much more in opportunity costs.)

Independence Day is an august occasion for re-activating the blog.  Independence Day commemorates the founding of our great nation by the Second Continental Congress.  On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was ratified, providing the vision for the foundling nation, immortalized by the following words:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Rarely have so few words had such great (and global) impact.  While familiar to us now, the ideas expressed were fiercely radical and controversial for the time.  In fact, England considered such language to be treasonous, and its advocates to be traitors.  With the Declaration’s ratification, our Founders were literally risking their lives.  With this revolutionary act, these men of privilege, wealth, and learning risked everything to establish a political system squarely founded on liberty.  By “inalienable,” the founders meant that our fundamental civil rights preceded and transcended government, whose purpose is to SECURE (i.e., protect) such rights.  Furthermore, the “consent of the governed” means that citizens must frequently and substantively provide their on-going consent . . . consent that involves much more than periodic elections, but includes many other mechanisms to solicit and incorporate the will of citizens.  This last point is conveniently lost on–or perhaps intentionally disregarded by—many elected and appointed government officials.

What has any of this discussion to do with local government?  Everything.  It is in local government that we (should) see the most direct and purest expression of the founders’ intentions.  In fact, the founders expected most government to occur at the local (and state) levels, where government is closest to the people.  Direct and substantive local engagement was desired and even expected.  Accordingly, I was surprised—shocked really—to find so much dysfunction in local government.  I found that consent of the governed was quite attenuated in Milton.  Rather than being wielded for the benefit of Milton’s citizens, power was wielded against citizens.  Our First Amendment rights were not being “secured” by our elected representatives, but rather some elected officials aggressively sought to silence and sideline citizens that dared criticize them and their dirty doings.  I was a key target (victim?) of their strategy of citizen suppression.  In fact, I am Public Enemy Number One for half a dozen former elected officials.  However, their many attempts to silence and sideline me have been spectacularly unsuccessful (and often backfired) and only served to embolden me.  They have been sidelined, not me.  I was bowed, but never broken.

I have abundantly documented many politicians’ affronts to citizens at this blog.  For example, you might recall Council Member Mohrig’s unauthorized investigation (in late 2023) of a citizen, where he trespassed on said citizen’s property and took photos.  After citizen uproar, the city reluctantly cited Mohrig for trespass . . . a slap on the wrist, considering the violations of said citizen’s Constitutional rights to due process, to protection against unreasonable search, and to privacy.  Mohrig (and former council member Paul Moore) also presided over a thoroughly dishonest election design process that denied Mohrig’s district its own polling place . . . so much for election integrity and equal access to the ballot box.  (See Note 1 below.)  Those are just two examples; the blog documents dozens more examples of rights infringements by Milton’s former elected officials.

And that, my Milton friends, is why Independence Day is so important.  We must be ever vigilant that local governments instituted to secure our rights (as intended by the Constitution) do not instead trespass on those rights.  In between elections, citizens must frequently ensure municipal government is garnering our consent through citizens’ substantive engagement in local civic affairs.  This includes speaking truth to power and exposing elected miscreants that would seek to suppress our fundamental rights.

Wishing You a Wonderful Independence Day,

Tim

Note 1:  Mohrig’s many transgressions were such that I lacked the bandwidth to expose his five campaign finance violations (but may yet do so in a future blog post . . . it depends on how the 2025 campaign plays out.)