Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. – William Shakespeare – “Macbeth”
I suppose many, if not most, of the folks who buy Commissioner Dave Wissel’s unmistakable efforts to discredit the assessor’s conduct of her elected office are those you’d expect to do so. Namely the so-called Head Accountable of the South Park Outsiders and her fellow travelers.
Indeed, during the last general election, these folks accused Assessor Monica Jones of stuffing a blue bag with uncounted ballots and hauling it to her office to steal an election. Commissioner Amy Mitchell even accommodated this fantasy by filing a CORA request so that she could examine video footage of the alleged nefarious deed from all points of the compass.
Monica Jones did not stuff uncounted ballots into a blue bag. That’s what the video evidence showed. Whether or not the SPO and their fellow travelers believe the empirical evidence is unsure. I suspect they don’t because, well, truth isn’t truth.
The South Park Outsiders vigorously supported Dave Wissel for the District 3 Commissioner seat. Since his win, the SPO Head Accountable has diligently raised her voice at public meetings to oppose everything Wissel opposes and support everything he supports.
Peas from the same pod scratching each other’s backs, made from the same cloth; an indubitable birds of a feather flocking together kind of scenario. More broadly, I believe it’s fundamentally a genetic tendency to pine for the archaic, simpler times embodied by antebellum America and, closer to home, the Code of the West.
A short aside.
James M. McPherson, in his history of the Civil War, “Battle Cry of Freedom,” notes that before 1861, the Federal government—the Presidency, the Congress, the Supreme Court—was dominated by southern slaveholding states.
During that antebellum period, the first seventy-two years of the republic’s history, “The South’s concept of republicanism,” McPherson notes, “had not changed in three-quarters of a century; the North’s had. With complete sincerity, the South fought to preserve its version of the republic of the founding fathers—a government of limited powers that protected the rights of property and whose constituency comprised an independent gentry and yeomanry of the white race undisturbed by large cities, heartless factories, restless free workers, and class conflict. The accession to power of the Republican party, with its ideology of competitive, egalitarian, free-labor capitalism, was a signal to the South that the northern majority had turned irrevocably toward this frightening, revolutionary future. …The North—along with a few countries of northwestern Europe—hurtled forward eagerly toward a future of industrial capitalism that many southerners found distasteful if not frightening; the South remained proudly and even defiantly rooted in the past before 1861.”
The ideology which characterizes groups such as the South Park Outsiders and the biases of politicians who share that ideology is unmistakably rooted in the past. It is a nostalgia for the simplicity of black and white, a pining for a Constitution which, before the Civil War Amendments, provided the negative “Congress shall not…” rather than the positive “Congress shall have the power,” which is embodied in those Civil War Amendments. Upholding the values of Lincoln’s Republican party necessarily requires the understanding that our republic was incontrovertibly changed by the Civil War. The domination of the slaveholding southern states was ended, and the northern states led the republic to a new birth of freedom. Indeed, it led to the common acceptance of the term “the United States is”, singular, rather than the bygone insistence “the United States are”, plural. It led to the republic’s dominant role in Western civilization.
The Christian Nationalistic movement to reembrace states’ rights and those 72 antebellum years as a template for the redemption of the republic the founders intended is to forget our history, worship the stasis of nostalgia, and declare that 620,000 combatants between 1861-1865 died in vain. It is no wonder this movement embraces a skewed perception of American history that demonizes Abraham Lincoln and declares that “America’s bloodiest war was a smokescreen for counterfeiting.”
Let’s go back to the topic.
It is not unreasonable to say that District 3 Commissioner Dave Wissel will probably never get over his loss of the Assessor’s Office to Monica Jones in 2018. Jones won the Republican primary by 21 votes that year and was unopposed in the November election. Wissel says he’s over it. But, Nah, he probably isn’t.
I’ve made the comparison before. Like Madame Defarge in Dicken’s “Tale of Two Cities,” Wissel’s burning discontent has never eased. Since the victor in his 2018 political loss was a woman—for God’s sake!!!—has he harbored an insatiable intent for vengeance? Madame Defarge was constantly knitting as the French Revolution ramped up. In that knitting, she encoded the names of her enemies, those to whom she would exact revenge. “Vengeance and retribution,” she said, “require a long time; it is the rule.”
I suspect Wissel’s needles aren’t for knitting, though. Instead, I see him poking and prodding at the gullibility of his flock, drawing them into the opening he sees for himself to finally ease the pain of that bygone insult of 2018. He will discredit Monica Jones. And what an excellent opportunity to do that during this unprecedented property tax imbroglio.
Indeed, Wissel may be taking a cue from George Washinton Plunkitt, a Tammany Hall politician in the late 18th and early 19th century, who said, “I seen my opportunities, and I took ‘em.”
Like Johhny Appleseed, Wissel has planted so many seeds in the shameful Discredit Monica arena that the SPO and their fellow travelers probably find it difficult to restrain their expectations for the harvest they may be planning for.
Indeed, the so-called SPO Head Accountable, Kimberly Gregory, during public comments at the June 6, 2023, Board of County Commissioners meeting, said that “…my tax assessment is so far off that it is mind-blowing like many, many other people I’ve talked to in the county the same thing is occurring. So, if, ah, and I can’t wait to then go into hearing with Monica and have her have to defend where she got these numbers from, um, they are astronomically incorrect from what I can tell from my [unclear word]. And so I do think that something is ah is shady is going on that’s the best word I can say. And I will hold that government official um that I didn’t choose to elect, but she got elected um ah to account. Thank you.”
Gregory consistently claims she’s been misquoted. So, I sincerely hope the empirical evidence will dispel that.
Before Gregory’s comments, John J. Mach, a longtime resident of Fairplay, stepped to the podium during public comment and recalled Wissel’s behavior toward Monica Jones during the May 23 BOCC Work Session. He noted, “Mr. Wissel’s public display of unsubstantiated accusations and name-calling is divisive and totally against any constructive activity toward solving the county’s current problem involving rising property taxation. Current rising taxes are not unique to Park County, or to Colorado for that matter. As such, this problem requires each and every one of our elected officials work hand-in-hand, not only to sensibly address this issue but also to intelligently deal with and conscientiously work to solve this dilemma! ” (Mr. Mach’s comments were published in the FLUME.)
Mr. Mach hit the nail squarely. However, that will be lost to those who, like Ms. Gregory, obviously believe the sky-high property tax assessments we’ve all received are due to something “shady” in the Aseessor’s Office. Most of us understand how our assessor, or any Colorado county assessor, calculates property taxes every two years. If you want to read the law, here’s Title 39 of the Colorado Revised Statutes.
Mr. Mach ended his comments with this: “I further believe that Mr. Wissel’s intention not to work cooperatively with any or all public officials is contrary to his duty and function as a member of our BOCC. This attitude and behavior clearly does not serve the best interests of the citizens of Park County. During this meeting, one lady in attendance respectfully requested the need that such discussions be conducted with proper and civil decorum. The question remains, can or will Mr. Wissel take this request to heart? Lastly, I wonder, does Madam Chair agree with and allow such unproductive behavior to continue during her administration? Is Mr. Wissel allowed to escape accountability for his shamefully disrespectful and unintellectual and just bad behavior? If so, I seriously doubt we shall see any change in his demeanor.”
Chair Mitchell’s answer to Mr. Mach’s question was to raise a gavel, which she said she would not hesitate to use to stifle inappropriate discourse by commissioners. There is the hope she will not hesitate to use the gavel to end the inappropriately outrageous topics some members of the public persist in raising during both BOCC work sessions and general meetings. (I’m not naming names. You know who you are.)
When it was Wissel’s turn to answer Mr. Mach’s question he deviated from his usual practice of not responding to questions from the public. He did respond, but, alas, he didn’t answer Mr. Mach’s question about whether he will engage in discussions with proper and civil decorum. Instead, Wissel commenced another of his hallmark self-serving orations for five minutes and ten seconds.
Rather than answer Mr. Mach’s question, Wissel changed the subject by asking his own questions, badgering Mr. Mach as if in a courtroom. It was the same tone he’d used with Monica Jones on May 23, a bullying tactic. And again, as if we hadn’t heard it a hundred times already, he harkened back to his time as assessor, an office he believes will always be his, regardless of who was elected by the people to the position.
If I were to define gaslighting, answering a question with a question would be the first characteristic of it. Like many politicians, Wissel has honed the art of the gaslight well.
Wissel then—he’d prepared for this—pulled out a blue pamphlet purported to be Standard 6 of the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. Standard 6 provides the method of reporting mass appraisals. Wissel then proceeded to recount (he does a great deal of that, mostly about himself) his practices during his time as the county’s assessor. He raised his visual aid (the blue pamphlet), pontificating about the “competency” and “comprehensive talent” required of the assessor’s office. Righteousness oozed. For five minutes and ten seconds.
Two immediate conclusions arose. Wissel is pathologically incapable of acknowledging that Monica Jones is the duly elected Assessor for Park County. And he’s on a roll, throwing out those seeds to the gullible in the Discredit Monica crusade.
He then argued that his interest in obtaining “…the total tax roll as of the May 1 Notice of Value Project” was because he is “a budget officer on a multi-county district. …I use that data,” he said, “in our matters of water to know where our potential customers are.” This was the topic that caused Wissel’s inappropriate, rude, badgering, uncivil discourse during the May 23 BOCC Work Session.
And it was this topic that most, if not all, property owners in Park County upset with the reappraisals of their property couldn’t care less about, much less know what the hell he was talking about. It would be an understatement to say it was Wissel’s red herring during that meeting. It was his cause célèbre, the peg upon which he could hang his hat for the benefit of the gullible.
Incidentally, I watched the South Park Outsiders Zoom meeting of May 25, where Dave Wissel was prominently featured. They demonstrated how to search for comparables needed to protest new assessments. I could be mistaken, but I believe the beginning date parameters they used to search for comparables were invalid and inconsistent with statutorily mandated comparison periods. (Please, if I am mistaken, leave a comment to that effect.)
Let’s review Wissel’s status as “a budget officer on a multi-county district.” He has been President of the Upper South Platte Water Conservancy District for decades. Rather than recapitulate the long story, here’s the history of Wissel’s water buffalo meanderings in Park County. I urge you to drill down in the link to the topic: 4. Dave Wissel and GEGE Development Consulting. You’ll even find some less-than-flattering documented history of his assessment practices. And, here’s a follow-up specific to the Wissel family affair with the Upper South Platte Water Conservancy District and GEGE Development Consulting.
Wissel ended his five-minute and ten-second soliloquy by doing what he does best—sowing discontent among the gullible. After arguing he needs data from the Assessor’s Office, he said, “I don’t need data to see what I see. I see it. I’ve been watching for four years what’s going on. Have I said anything? Have I gone public with it? No. But I know what I know.”
Does Wissel know that the pain of his 2018 political loss will never be assuaged until he gets even? Is it he, and only he, who knows how to be Park County’s Assessor? And, come to think of it, I suspect it won’t be long before he asserts it is he, and only he, who knows how to run elections in Park County. The Clerk and Recorder, Mel Kassel, can just step aside.
For fun, I went to AI and asked: Can a narcissist ever say I’m sorry?
This is the answer I got: While a narcissist can say, “I’m sorry,” it is generally rare and often challenging for them. Narcissists need admiration and validation and often struggle to take responsibility for their actions or acknowledge their mistakes. They tend to have a limited capacity for empathy. They may focus more on defending their self-image and avoiding perceived weakness or vulnerability. …Some narcissists may occasionally apologize if they believe it serves their self-interest, such as maintaining a relationship or regaining control over a situation. They may also use apologies as a manipulative tactic to maintain control or gain sympathy.
Food for thought.
And, finally, it’s important to note I don’t pull the subject matter of these posts from my ass. I research, I study, I document, I validate. If I make assumptions about anything, I do so basing my conclusions on temporal truths–what is obviously right in front of my face. If some believe my characterization of them is “hateful,” then–knowing the term’s coinage is prolific amongst MAGAites–I know I’ve accomplished some little victory in the dangerous battle for the soul of America.
