At least when it comes to the federal government, it’s over $7 TRILLION (OK, some $2 trillion of that is made up out of thin air) or so, we can see why all the dirty pool is going on.

But in Grand Junction, we’re not even talking about real money at our budget levels.

The lengths some folks are going to obtain for part-time, volunteer jobs on Grand Junction City Council are beyond our imagination. After all, filling potholes, picking up trash, running a few softball, golf and pickleball leagues, mowing and trimming lawns at our parks and hiring enough cops shouldn’t take more than a few hours a month to manage.

Because isn’t that what a city councilperson should do? Just make sure the few services the city should provide its citizens run smoothly. And even if one doesn’t want the city to do some of what it’s doing, like running golf courses, swimming pools, theaters and the like, people should agree it runs those things efficiently and transparently with our tax dollars.

After all, when it comes to government, especially local government, the government will be doing something individuals like and demand along with other things individuals think government shouldn’t be in our back yards about, let alone within 100 miles of.

Now, we’ll admit when it comes to things like the swimming pools, parks and golf courses, the problems associated are few and far between, and they usually result from inefficiencies and oversights all government is subject to for one reason or another. After all, our publisher takes full advantage of the City of Grand Junction’s ownership in two golf courses, and he sees concerns he’d prefer they’d address with our tax dollars. But as we said, it comes with the territory.

And let’s be honest, these kinds of inconveniences affect only a small number of people within a confined area of the city’s responsibilities.

The real problems, however, come when a few in government do what a few in the citizenry demand, which affect us all. Which brings us full circle to the current city council races. After all, it can’t be over a measly couple of hundred million bucks. At this level it must be about one thing: Control.

After all, most of the $200 million or so that the city spends is already accounted for before next year’s budget begins. Why else does the city council have to go to the ballot box for anything extra it wants to do or, worse, design bike lanes into every grant request it writes, or try to figure a way to grift off federal government dollars?

Where do you think all the bollards, the immediately over-budget facilities pop up even after a specific-dollar tax issue is approved by the voters, the convoluted mess with the “resource center” along with so many other agenda items the people know nothing about come from?

Now you might say the voters had a voice in the rec center, and we’d agree to a point. But the fact is: Before the final vote was announced the city was already looking for more dollars, and an expanded center was in the plans. Of that, we can only come to one conclusion: The current majority on city council have no concern for citizens’ input outside of their votes.

And that concerns us greatly. After all, one just needs to look at the petition paperwork of three candidates with the common threads of about a dozen names to know whose input is valued by the current city council and these chosen candidates.

Reelecting Cody Kennedy on council is not enough, even though he has been a strong and effective voice of reason and transparency. We also need to elect Ben VanDyke, Laurel Cole and Robert Ballard.

The alternative is to be ruled by a few doing whatever they, and their benefactors, want. As we’ve seen recently, that never works out well for the citizens.