Bill Cox urges no vote on charter revision
Councilman Bill Cox, Ward 1, is on vacation, but still thinking about city business - he e-mailed us today and asked us to post this statement in opposition to the proposed City Charter revision on Tuesday's ballott.
Serious Problems with proposed charter Changes
1. No separation of power. A proposed change has the city manager appointing the members of the Planning and Development Committee ( Planning Board). The City Manager already appoints the members of the Zoning Board of Appeals. If the City Manager is allowed to appoint both board members its sets up a dangerous possibility of deals being made behind closed doors which is very difficult to happen now, because City Council appoints Planning Committee members. The City Manager can appoint people to both boards who are “friendly” to particular causes and future project and land developments and ensure they get passed regardless of what the taxpayers want, what neighborhood it involves, and what tax breaks it gets. This would be a very dangerous and damaging situation that would most likely occur sooner or later.
2. Up to 14 years for an appointment. The terms of appointments for the Planning and Development committee for the city manager to appoint being proposed will enable a member to be in office for as long as 14 years. The terms now are 3 years with a renewal of 3 more years. The change proposed has the new terms of 5 years, with reappointment for a second 5 years and if someone resigns, after the first year, his replacement can be in office for 4 years and be eligible for both 5 year terms. Having someone in an appointed office for up to 14 years is a very bad idea for lots of reasons.
3. Wording in proposed charter can permit the fire and police departments to be done away with. The proposed wording specifies the city must provide police and fire protection however it does not state we have to have a police and fire department. This is a subtle but very important change in wording. This sets the stage for a potential elimination of those departments by having outside agencies provide these services.
4. Elimination of voter approval for Council pay increases. The proposed charter changes languages which can enable City Council to raise their own pay. Whenever an elected body of officials can give themselves raises, they become much less accountable to the voters and citizens. This is always a bad idea. That is one of the reasons Washington and New York State is in just mess; it is why politicians continue to vote for massive spending and increases in personal benefits for themselves, and more perks. City Council Members receive $2,000. a year for pay, except the Council President who receives a little more. Our citizens pay outrageously high property taxes, school taxes, and fees a lot of which can be traced directly to City Council decisions. When the taxpayer’s burden gets lowered and future council decisions that lower taxes are made, then perhaps Council deserves a pay increase and then only when the citizens and voters decide that. When we ran for office we knew the pay structure.
5. Redistricting of wards. The proposed changes include going through an expensive process based upon future census counts one of which is being conducted in April 2010. Then re-drawing Ward Boundaries. This is unnecessary, disruptive, and expensive. Genesee County has a good system of having true representation for the people which is “weighted voting”. Periodically as people move, one geographic area can gain population and another one can lose some. Legislature calculates this and assigns a “weighted vote” to a particular legislator. This means that one legislator can have 1.1 votes while another can have .9 votes. What this does is allow the best representation of the people to occur at the legislative level. We should follow the county method in the city or leave it as is, instead an expensive process of redrawing ward boundaries, going through a lot of expensive and then doing it every 10 years when a new census occurs.
6. Separation of Power - City Manager will appoint City Attorney instead of City Council. The proposed charter takes this appointment away from Council which is a very dangerous situation. This change in effect will mute the authority of City Council over the City Manager. The city attorney or law firm representing the city gets his direction from the city manager in most cases. If Council believes a change is necessary and a new city manager is needed, the city attorney who now gets over $200,000. in projects through the city manager has to decide who to back in a dispute between City Council and the City Manager. If you were getting $200,000. in pay from one source, who do you think you will back? People vote for their wallet. Right now the city attorney can be dismissed by Council if they feel a change is warranted and expenses are out of line. We lose that ability if this charter is passed.
7. City Manager is given the authority and power of a Mayor in most respects without ever having to run for office. The proposed charter changes dramatically increases the authority and influence of the City Manager and reduces the authority and influence of the City Council members who you appoint. The proper way to do this is to let the people decide if they want a Mayor
And not back door the issue by these proposed changes in the City Charter. Do it the right way or not at all.
Here are two good proposed changes. One good proposed change is going to a sub-committee structure for some meetings. This will allow for items and proposals to be discussed with less contention and perhaps less controversy. However healthy open debate is what democracy is all about. This one change is not enough reason to overcome the negative changes proposed. A second good one is that the chief financial officer is not the city manager and the proposed change is for the head of the finance department to be the chief financial officer. It stipulates also to get rid of the city engineer. I believe we need a city engineer but not a city engineer and an assistant manager both. This calls for no city engineer.
I believe the overall charter changes proposed, weaken the representation of the people by weakening city council authority, that they set up the possibility of back door deals being made in future planning and zoning boards exclusively appointed by the city manager, and turn the position of city manager into a position of power equivalent to a mayor without the need for the manager to ever run for that office and be elected by the people.
I urge our citizens to vote no for the charter changes. We need to go back to the drawing boards and do a better job of changes.