
Residents of Colorado Springs undertook a radical experiment in government - molecule
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/30/colorado-springs-libertarian-experiment-america-215313
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mikestew
It makes for a rare look into what happens when you finally elect the "just
run government like a business" candidate. Whoops, turns out there's a reason
we have different words for those two things. OTOH, that hospital deal, man,
someone on the city council better have been getting some kickbacks if only to
excuse such poor negotiating.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
The politicians spend other people's money poorly so the people elect a
businessman to stop spending money. The businessman stops spending most of the
money but what he has he spends poorly. The people elect a politician who now
only has the small amount of money left by the businessman and is forced to
spend it wisely.

I think that is a resounding success.

~~~
mikestew
The problem is that the populous cannot elect the "run it like a business"
candidate _twice_. Your analysis says it was a success (and I'm not
disagreeing), but they needed a different kind of candidate to come in and
clean up. So though it might work once in a while, you couldn't make a "run it
like a business" party/platform with any degree of success.

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MrZongle2
Colorado Springs resident here. I think the article provided a pretty fair
assessment of things, considering it addressed how [previous Mayor] Bach
identified bad deals such as the Memorial Hospital deal and the power plant
scrubber. This town's leadership in general has been dysfunctional for a long
time; Bach wasn't the cure-all that many had hoped he would be.

Couple of additional thoughts:

Regarding the (new) Mayor's success in getting $250M for roads: what isn't
mentioned is that the roads in this town are _abysmal_. When I lived in
Northern Virginia many moons ago, I joked that I could always tell when I
drove into DC by the effect on my car's handling. Having just come back from a
vacation to that area, I can affirm that Colorado Springs has surpassed DC in
this respect.

The neglect of the roads was another petulant move by the City towards voters,
just like the streetlights.

Secondly, despite so often being painted as an arch-conservative western
extension to the bible belt, Colorado Springs is a pretty tolerant, open-
minded city. I'd suggest checking out the /r/ColoradoSprings section on
Reddit, especially where people ask about how LGBT-friendly, etc the place is,
and read the answers from some of the other locals. It isn't the town out of
"Footloose".

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lotsoflumens
A good read despite the ridiculous headline.

Colorado is an amazing place.

The article quotes a journalist:

>> “This town is so easily scammed,” says John Hazlehurst, himself a former
councilmember and now a columnist with the Colorado Springs Business Journal.
“Why? Because we’re hicks. It’s really that simple.”

No, I don't think that's fair. The people are nice, that's all.

~~~
sqeaky
Being nice doesn't mean you need to be vulnerable.

Being uneducated or otherwise deficient is how you become vulnerable. That
council members choice of words was a self portrayal and a critical one at
that.

Honest and hard self-critique is incredibly valuable and likely earned that
person a few votes.

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Overtonwindow
Usually I down-vote political articles on HN but this one I like. It's
balanced, good analysis, and really discusses government theory and
management, as opposed to the usual partisan stuff we see.

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dagenleg
While the article was kind of inconclusive, I found the pictures of 'notable
people' inside quite amusing. I guess 'a guy in a business suit standing on
the side of the road' is a good image for small town mayor.

~~~
sqeaky
How could it be conclusive? It is really hard to make objective declarations
when messy things, like people, are involved.

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vacri
How bizarre that this article is flagged.

