Rantz: Despicable abuse of power on safe injection sites

The King County Council should feel nothing but abject shame for their decision to push politics over the will of the people.

Related: Musician’s despicable promotion of safe injection sites

Campaigners for Initiative 27 submitted the required signatures to put on a ballot a ban on safe injection sites. The signatures were submitted prior to the deadline, but the county dragged its feet in verifying the signatures and postponed the ballot measure from November to February of next year.

They finally verified the signatures, but it was too late, they said, to put on the November ballot. When given the chance to overrule that decision and put the initiative up for a vote in three months, the paternalistic cowards on the council said no.

It doesn’t matter your view on safe injection sites. We should all be appalled by this abuse of power that willfully ignores the clear will of the people to vote on this issue. Kudos to Councilmember Kathy Lambert and Pete von Reichbauer for being the voices of reason on this.

Why do we have deadlines in place if the county won’t stand by them? What is the point if the county will pick and choose when they want to follow their own rules?

The only reason this is being delayed is because the council and King County leadership support the sites and want their will imposed on you, even in the face of obvious objections. They’re terrified that we’re against this and they’re offended that we’re questioning their decisions. The hope is that they’ll install the safe injection sites before February, when this would be voted on, and you’ll either see positive results (which you won’t because safe injection sites don’t treat addiction, they just enable it) or you’ll think it’s a lost cause because it’s already in operation.

It’s a cynical and disturbing tactic but when you have power to abuse, making decisions like this are so much easier.

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