(Replying to PARENT post)
The excellent book _Sundown Towns_ [1] pointed out something I had never noticed. People from suburbs and exurbs expect without question to be able to use big-city facilities. E.g., parks, libraries, and all manner of for- and non-profit organizations. But suburbs and exurbs often either restrict facilities to residents (as with parks) or don't have them at all (as with drug treatment centers, halfway houses, homeless support, hospitals).
That worked well enough for the suburbanites in the early decades of suburbanization; well-off people moved out of town and stopped paying for the central facilities. But as those communities become less homogeneous over the generations, they too started needing drug treatment, homeless support, etc. Except that the residents are very used to low taxes, so city managers don't have the money to fix things.
I get the desire for low taxes; who doesn't like as low a price as possible? But there's a toxic combination of penny-wise, pound-foolish thinking and pure IGMFY out there that seems so misguided to me. I don't have kids myself, but I still believe strongly in making things better for the next generation and the one after that.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Sundown-Towns-Hidden-Dimension-Americ...
(Replying to PARENT post)
Are you sure? I am not sure about this instance, but in many other rural instances where these measures are voted against, it's not out of ignorance. Rather it's out of disagreement with money mismanagement. Again, can't speak to this case in particular, but too often outsiders judge these actions by voters as anti-funding instead of anti-waste. Then they call them ignorant and wonder why they vote the way they do in larger elections that do affect them. On the opposite end, I am seeing more and more people guilting their fellow citizens into raising taxes because something can't be funded otherwise as though the amount currently taxed isn't enough. Nobody ever wants to fix/reroute budget-making/spending at the top, they just want to assume you need to take more to fund anything and label their peers as ignorant who disagree (not saying you are doing this because, again, I don't know about that county in Oregon).
(Replying to PARENT post)
If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice. Of course, that could have some pretty nasty consequences, but again, they voted for it, and it's their choice. I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments.
As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves". The people in these rural counties are getting the government they deserve.
(Replying to PARENT post)
Grants pass town (Josephine county) is generally a bad place to be, with lots of bad drugs and crime. But the country nearby has really scenic lakes and mountains, and is a good place to live if you have property. It's about an hour drive to anything better (Jackson county), so it's somewhat isolated.
It looks like the county wanted to levy property tax from $0.58 per $1000 of value, to $2.57 per, which was their plan to fund the sheriff Dept., DA, and juvenile detention. The people fought back and won. [0]
A small town near where I grew up ceased it's police force, and is instead patrolled by county sheriffs stationed in nearby towns. The truth is there are many people out here who just want to live their private country lives, many of who have small income, and spend their year fishing and hunting for food.
It's hard to expect people who want to live small lives to pay for other people to have bigger lives, especially when the gap is large. Oregon isn't too bad of an example, but I was living in Illinois recently, and I saw the same situation there but much more drastically imposed. Chicago is obsessed with huge funding and high taxes, and the rest of the state is being dragged along unwillingly with an entirely different view. Unfortunately Chicago is about the only interesting thing in Illinois, so you can imagine which side gets votes.
[0] https://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/05/josephine_...
(Replying to PARENT post)
(Replying to PARENT post)
It seems to me that believing in democracy also requires in believing in democratic outcomes even when they are not your own personal preferences or opinions.
Not everyone wants to be forced to buy more things from the government.
(Replying to PARENT post)
In 2014 Josephine county voted down a tax to keep their jail open.
Another counties entire sheriff's department resigned recently, due to lack of funding to properly staff the office; they were all burning the candle at both ends.
There are other examples of this behavior over the last decade that are easily Googled, so I'll avoid posting it all.
If you talk to these people, or see their commentaries online, many of them are thinking they'll just make taxes low, and of course someone will build a factory, in the middle of nowhere, with a poorly informed workforce, and no social services.
The locals don't want to shoulder the cost of education and security, but of course some private business owner will.