Vote 2002
Tiger would guarantee privacy
Salas, Democratic nominee, promises service
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by Staff (Editorial@boulderweekly.com)

Linda Salas (D) has a long career in municipal service as the current Erie town clerk and previously as a deputy town clerk in Louisville for 10 years. She also worked before as a deputy clerk in the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's office, and feels ready to move up to Boulder County Clerk.

Salas is considered a court expert on election proceedings and she possesses a solid understanding of data retrieval programs. She wants to take advantage of the county clerk's office to educate voters and increase voter registration. Salas opposes the ballot question to eliminate precinct caucuses because "if you get the voter education out there, they'll go to precinct caucuses and county assemblies."

She emphasized that, despite her nomination by the Democratic Party, she would be a non-partisan county clerk. "We are there to provide customer service, not partisanship," Salas says.

Although she loves the idea of everybody registering to vote, Salas questioned the practicality of same-day registration on election day, citing unexpected costs in election judges and computers. "I wouldn't want it to be chaotic," she says.

Voting by mail can work if people vote regularly and notify the clerk's office of any change of address, Salas says, but too many people vote only in exciting presidential election years and Boulder's student population is very transient. Salas hopes to use newspapers, title and mortgage companies, and real estate personnel to get registration and voting reminders out to voters.

She said she doesn't really consider her opponents, Republican Dennis Ceremuga and Libertarian Paul Tiger, as opponents. Rather, they're practically friends. "We get along very well," Salas says.

Salas considers herself the ideal candidate to be county clerk because "I consider myself a near-geek and I love computers."

Dennis Ceremuga (R) wants to be county clerk because he considers it "a personal goal of mine" to prevent the kind of Democratic political machine in Boulder that dominated his hometown of Chicago. He moved from Illinois to Boulder 16 years ago.

Ceremuga also wants to improve customer service and make the county clerk's office "user friendly." People want short lines at county offices and some human understanding, Ceremuga observes.

"How many times have you stood in a line at a government office when you develop a knot in your stomach?" he asks. During his campaign, Ceremuga said he had heard many tales from intimidated or humiliated patrons of the county clerk's office: one upset patron found an armed security guard at his side and an autistic person was unable to write cursively, just print, so the clerk would not accept his signature.

"That's typical government and I'm not typical government. I'm not steeped in the bureaucratic tradition," says Ceremuga, noting that winning the county clerk's job would mean a cut in pay for him. "I care about this job. I'm not doing it for the money."

Ceremuga offers 30 years of private sector experience in accounting, finance and management. For him, Ceremuga says, managing a $300 million budget as well as 70 employees spread over three locations would be a piece of cake.

Paul Tiger (L) is a typical Libertarian geek with a 25-year year career in software engineering, so he calculates he'd be a good county clerk. "It's all about data management and technology," he says.

Tiger is campaigning full-time because he's not working currently. "I was going through a major mid-life crisis. I decided I was going to find out more of what life was all about." He dabbled with writing for the now-defunct Boulder Planet on technology issues, and volunteered to rewrite Vapor Technology's in-house marketing materials. But once a techie, always a techie...

"A few years ago, the clerk's office was holding all of its data on an IBM 3070, a mainframe that was obsolete in the 1970s," Tiger explains. "That's been replaced by a bunch of PCs that, the clerk is aware, don't work for them, don't serve them. I want to bring their technology into the 21st century."

Tiger says he will protect the privacy of people whose data is held in county records. "Right now, the entire county database, including property and vehicle titles, marriage licenses, and election information, can be purchased, sorted, merged and delivered to you on CD-ROM for $300. I don't care how much money it makes, it's not in your best interest to have the government sell your information. I want it to stop."

A community activist with a technological bent, Tiger voluntarily fixed a data processing "snafu" in Sheriff George Epp's computer system "so that innocent people would not end up in jail." He also designed a Linux system for non-profit administration as Secretary/Volunteer Coordinator for the Boulder Community Network. Tiger serves as president of the Friends of the Longmont Youth Center, and serves on the Youth Services Advisory Board of Longmont. He's also a volunteer firefighter/rescuer for the Boulder and Longmont emergency squads.

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