Yes! Yes! No!

Conventional wisdom has it that Johnson Countians don't embrace change easily, the exceptions being a new mall or bigger home. So it's a little surprising that on November 7, voters there will decide on three ballot questions designed to restructure their county government.

The biggie is Question 1, a Home Rule Charter proposal that would change the offices of county clerk and treasurer to appointed, rather than elected, positions and eliminate the register of deeds. The rationale is that voters sometimes elect "unqualified" people to those positions. Never mind that history is flush with people performing well in jobs they supposedly didn't have the training or background to do. Harry Truman never got his law degree but became a distinguished president; on the flip side, look at the string of "qualified professional educators" who did their damage to the Kansas City, Missouri, School District.

In Johnson County, the learning-curve theory has served the public. Beverly Baker has been county clerk for 12 years, having been reelected three times. Sara F. Ullman has been register of deeds since 1989 and is in her third term. Since 1981, William E. O'Brien has been county treasurer, though he caught heat earlier this year when people complained of long waits to get their car licenses renewed at county offices. It made the news, and JoCo politicians wailed as if Nordstrom had threatened to leave Oak Park Mall. I was mystified by the criticism, especially remembering the yearly slow-motion descent into madness when I renewed my Missouri plates at the state office building downtown. It was like planning a military action. I had to skip work for a day, bring a snack and liquids to maintain my strength, and make sure I went to the bathroom before entering the "line." When I moved to Kansas and got my plates at the Johnson County Northeast office within 15 minutes, I felt like tipping the clerks and was at a loss for what to do the rest of the day.

Even so, when considering Johnson County's explosive growth -- nearly 450,000 people live there now, up from 270,000 in 1980 -- and its budget of $438.8 million, it makes sense to appoint professional people to key county positions.

Proponents for Question 2 put forth the same "administrative" argument that "the county is a business." Question 2 proposes increasing the number of county commissioners from five to seven, with one new commissioner elected at-large who would serve as commission chair. The idea here is that the current system of rotating the chair among commissioners prevents the board from presenting a consistent and, at least on the surface, united voice on policy. But where is it written that an elected body is supposed to present a united voice? Short of attack by foreign powers, democracy needs dissenting opinions. Using an at-large commissioner as permanent chair means that particular commissioner represents the board more than the people who elected him. Might as well hire a PR firm to articulate the board's stand on issues.

But Question 3 is the most controversial. It would make county commission elections nonpartisan. The issue surfaced after the 25-member citizen Charter Commission, which had been instructed to find ways to improve county government, reached consensus on Questions 1 and 2. The current partisan elections "became a problem once you started with the proposition that you've got to expand the county commission," says one Charter Commission member who didn't want to be named. He says some county leaders feared that "the Kansas City model of government" would take hold "with Freedom Inc. coming over here." Outside of his racist slam at Kansas City's black political club, there's the irony that Freedom Inc. has lost much of its political clout at city hall.

Edwin Kinney, an architect who chaired the Charter Commission, says the nonpartisan question "lay latent for a time, then became an issue," one on which "the commission couldn't reach a consensus." Finally, by a one-vote margin (13 to 12), the Charter Commission agreed to put the question before voters.

The acrimony surrounding Question 3 carried over into Questions 1 and 2, fueled somewhat by the way the state legislature wrote the Home Charter statute: Question 1 must pass before Questions 2 and 3 take effect. The result has been a weird formation of pro and con groups, some championed by Charter Commission members. Supporters of all three questions back a group called Yes! Yes! Yes! for Johnson County Charter. They're opposed by the "No No No" group called the Accountable Government Coalition, led by former U.S. Representative Jan Meyers. Now there's a new group, calling itself Yes Yes No, that's against only the nonpartisan proposal.

"I think disclosure of party affiliation gives important information to voters in making their decision," says attorney Thomas Robinett, a Charter Commission member and Yes Yes No backer. "Once you get to the county level, it's appropriate. It tells you something about that (candidate's) approach to issues."

Supporters of all three questions include most of Johnson County's elected officials and groups such as the League of Women Voters and the Mainstream Coalition. Their arguments center around the premise that nonpartisan elections make for better government. A lot of Kansas City, Missouri, residents governed by the nonpartisan city council might disagree, but here are the finer points put forth by nonpartisan advocates: