Dozens of readers, many of whom said they are on fixed incomes and are worried, have wondered how they can contact the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners to weigh in on the proposed 10 percent levy hike to fund “transforming systems together.” That was the name given to the invented-out-of-whole-cloth idea to pay for more equity and inclusion initiatives, none of which can be defined, measured or understood with any clarity.

It is not difficult to weigh in, but the mere idea of citizens not entirely clear of the process suggests for too long the residents of Ramsey County have just taken what they have been force fed and have not complained or spoken in opposition to the ever-expanding board and its demands for more of your money.

Go to the Ramsey County Board website and you will find the phone number, 651-266-8500. More productively the website offers a page on each of the seven commissioners with links to email them, or to use any other form of social media.

I am sure the board members are reasonable souls who will come to understand that they cannot continually raise property taxes to accommodate their whims, and nothing is more whimsical than the latest, “transforming systems together.”

That will require, remember, another director-level position, two employees and a $3 million budget by 2021 to “incent, change and fund approaches to strengthen communities and reduce the need for justice system responses.”

Not measurable for success, therefore not worth $3 million added to an already bloated budget.

The language they are using is galling in its obfuscation.

“You cannot improve outcomes without a conversation about race,” said Ryan O’Connor, Ramsey County manager. “The question becomes: Where does the strategy for work come from, and how do we become aligned to that?”

Well, again, what outcomes are expected and based on what?

Policy and Planning director Elizabeth Tolzmann said the county needed “to be creative in spaces where there is the most discomfort.”

I have no idea what that means, but it’s a beauty.

A reader, Bud Haak, a former English teacher, has come to our rescue. It struck Mr. Haak that the vocabulary and syntax of the board members is reminiscent of the language used by adherents of metaphysics seen in 18th-century literature.

A familiar example, Haak wrote, is seen in the 1766 classic by Oliver Goldsmith, “The Vicar of Wakefield,” with the young squire’s statement after a meal to the Vicar’s family. I will use the spelling as sent to me as from the book:

“The premisses being this settled, I proceed to observe, that the concatenation of self-existences, proceeding in a reciprocal duplicate ratio, naturally produce a problematic dialogism, which, in some measures, proves that the essence of spirituality may be referred to the second predicable.”

He, the squire, followed that up with:

“Whether do you judge the analytical investigation of the first part of my enthymeme deficient secundum quoad, or quoad minus; and give me your reasons – .”

Haak noted that the quotes are found on page 58 of that book, in an 1890 Macmillan & Co. edition.

Perfect. I have no idea what any of that means, either, which I suppose is the point when you gather in the salon and study any branch of philosophy, particularly one as nebulous as metaphysics. Related Articles Soucheray: Defund the police! Wait, where’d the police go?

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I have not read “The Vicar of Wakefield,” but I had delightful conversation with Haak, who told me that what struck him, when he read about the county’s latest initiative and its cost, was the plot of that ancient book. The squire, the son of a land owner, turns out to be the bad guy in the book, taking more and more.

And the Vicar?

The Vicar ends up in debtors’ prison.

Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.