Batavia charter revisions passes

For the nine members of the City Charter Commission; I would like to thank the voters who approved the revisions to the Batavia City Charter.

When we started this process in early 2008, all nine members came in with open minds. Our only goal was to see if we could make the Charter better. Many hours were devoted to every line in the Charter to see if it could be made better or left as is. Not all the members agreed on everything and not everyone got everything they would have liked. Like any process there was give and take. But in the end, we think this is a good Charter that will serve the City of Batavia well.

Again, thanks to all of you voted “yes”.

John Roach
Charter Commission Chairman

John , Thank You for the time and effort that you and the rest of the charter commission members have put in . It is obvious that we are moving in the right direction .

We will have some bumps in the road as we travel down the newly paved road the revised charter has created . In the end ,Batavia will be better off .

As with any new set of rules there will always be items that aren't to everybody's liking. Nothing is ever 100%. As when it came to the City budget, so goes how I feel about the new Charter. As a whole I support and like the new Charter. There will always be a line or two that someone would wish to be different, just like the budget. I like the new Charter and I also thank all those involved in writing it.

I feel the most important part of this charter is the committee system. Hopefully, the new Council will enact it swiftly.

Howard, but by breaking down into sections doesn't that just draw out the process and allow whole sections to be delayed or "tabled indefinitely"? Using the budget as an example, if Council voted on every line or even every page how long would it take to pass a budget? The comission was selected and trusted to compile the rules over 18 months and every item was discussed and available to both the public and elected officials as they were written. Feed back was possible for every rule during the process. To let Council vote on things individually might cause more partisan politics. The comission was selected and the members were approved to hopefully remove politics from the procedure. By letting them do what they were asked to do and presenting a finished product for approval was faster and yet still a fair way of doing things. If you wanted to be heard and voice your opinion, you had the ability to do so. Even better, you could have done that while that particular topic was being discussed, instead of picking it apart at the end.

Charlie,
I agree the sub committee change will be the most important. Even if the next council does use it right away, they have the option.

Howard,
We did consider breaking it into smaller sections, but decided against it in the end.

Then if any were voted down those provisions would be put off till next year. Unless you have special elections set up to vote on any rules that needed to be re-addressed. Any one of your 12 balloted sections that got voted down would then have to be revised and voted on again, thus drawing out the process. Why vote on it at all? Really? Did you not attend any of the hearings? Thats why I thought they held those meetings, so others could see what was going on and we were also given a chance to speak. Maybe I'm wrong. Should we have just let them do as they pleased behind closed doors and just accept what they came up with without a vote? I never suggested there should not have been a vote. I said there was the ability to voice opinions along the way. Everybody had to chance to vote no, even if it was about one single thing in the whole charter. I voted yes because the overall package was good, along with 747 citizens.

Howard, your're right.
If it had been voted on in sections, any change/section that was voted "down" would have left the original section as it is now.

A section voted "down" would not come up again unless Council voted to put it on the ballot again, or if a future Charter Committee brought it back. Since Charter reviews do not take place often, it would in effect, be "dead".

If the charter had been voted down this year, then the old charter would have remained as is.

I don't understand the compensation part and then a bit later I was impressed by the way they changed "compensation" of the council to "composition" of the council, giving the paragraph a totally different meaning from the original. Is the city council working for free since the $2000 figure is crossed out? Unless I missed something. If I did please copy and paste what I missed. Maybe it's me or my computer. It said something about Council President getting 40% more than the other Council Members. How much is the Council President going to make? Plus y'all agreed to four year terms. You'll be moaning about that in three years. Oh well, Kay Sara Sara, haha.

I guess I'm wrong. As I understood it, there were parts of the old Charter that were deemed "illegal" by the State. If one of those parts were voted down, how could it revert to the old Charter rule if it were illegal? I guess that there actually were no parts of the old Charter that went against State rules or laws. My misunderstanding.

George,
It has been 4 year terms for decades. The 3 year term was what the last commission (2000) was told a term could be. Some members back then wanted 2 year terms and others wanted to stay at 4 years. They finally agrred to 3 years.

After that charter revision was passed in Nov. 2000, it turned out not to be legal. Terms of office must be even numbered years. Since the old term had been 4, it stayed that way. But, for years nobody corrected the charter until now.

Looks to me as if Jason just got a lot more power, he gets to pick all most any one he wants to do what he wants on most of the committees, I guess it is so he can guide them on our behalf, yea right!!!!!!!!!
Speaking of Jason, what ever happened with the complaint against him? Get swept under the rug did it?

Ken,
You have a right to be wrong.

Jason picks members for only two boards, according to NYS law.

ALL other boards, committees and commissions are picked by City Council.

On top of that (I know, you missed it) the Council picks the manager. Now if Council picks the manager, who has the power?

Now, how does he get all this new power?

As for the complaint, I think they are still waiting for either Mr. Leaker to come forward or the person who made the complaint to come forward.

John,

Three boards, and the Assessor. Boards of people to see things the way he sees them? One person should not have that ability, let council vote them in or not.

He can terminate a volunteer from a committee! Why the hell would you fire a volunteer, be thankful you could get anyone to do anything for free.Why does a volunteer have to be a city resident to be on a committee, and the assistant manager does not?

Hey Ken and Tim,you should of bought all this up before the vote..It passed...too late to be talking about it now.......Again John great job..I'm surprized after all the
BS Tim caused he would still be complaining how things are done..Isn't their some cupcake caper going on you can bitch about..

Good points Ken, too late, but good anyway.

Tim, you're not relevant anymore. You saw to that yourself.

I didn't have any complaints. I said that they did a good job on the Charter and that's why I voted yes on it. Where was my complaint? I'd congratulate you Chris but there is no reason too. I got more votes in my one ward than you did in two wards. In fact, Billy Blakshear got more votes two years ago and he had no money and barely campaigned. So go ahead and call me not relevant, your numbers did't exactly make you a rock star.

Well Tim, we gained around 11 percentage points over 2007. Turnout was down but I'm not sure what more we could have done about that. I lost my race but I can look anyone in the eye and say that I worked hard and ran a clean campaign. I lost, but I'm certainly not a loser.

Now that you're a Republican maybe you can move into the 8th District and threaten to primary Hollis if he doesn't support your next doomed run for City Council. That's what you did to Ed and I'd certainly expect no better of you now that you've gone to the Republican Party.

The sad thing is, if you had had the guts to enter into a primary for the City Council endorsement, you probably would have won it. I still think that you would have stood a fair chance at actually winning a seat on Council. Instead, you decided that the correct course would be to cultivate your anger over some imagined slight.

Chris, if you decide to keep you hand in local politics, you know you can count on many to be at your side. It would be my pleasure to work as hard as I can to help you get elected to whatever office you chose to run.

Posted by Timothy Paine on November 5, 2009 - 12:59am
I'd congratulate you Chris but there is no reason too. I got more votes in my one ward than you did in two wards. In fact, Billy Blakshear got more votes two years ago and he had no money and barely campaigned. So go ahead and call me not relevant, your numbers did't exactly make you a rock star.

Do you honestly believe that your came out of all this as a 'rock star'?

Tim Paine, you ARE irrelevant. Your childish commentary should have ended a couple of weeks ago, when you attempted to sabotage the character of a local political figure. You would think someone would have pointed out to you that these personal attacks on people are ugly, and do you no help with your anger. Now, going tit for tat with Chris....it's boring. And as far as being a registered Republican, any chance you would change back now? I'm not registered GOP, but we are kindred parties, and as a conservative, I take offense to RINO's.

Chris- Of the dems running for office, I applaud your effort. I hope you will continue to pursue your political aspirations in the future. Your passion and enthusiasm were apparent, and even though I don't live in Batavia, I did follow the campaign via the Batavian and the local paper. You are an example of what we can only hope for going forward.
And here's hoping Mr. Tim Paine crawls back under his rock.

Ken,
We share the Assessor with the Town of Batavia to cut costs. That deal was apporved by the City Council.

THE ASSESSOR IS NOT A CITY EMPLOYEE.

The manager can not "fire" anyone from any committee. If a person fails to attend meetings or take required training, then the person can be removed. But, Ken, why would you want to keep somebody who does not attend meetings? Ken, why would you keep someboyd who first agrees to take training and then, does not?

Thanks Bud. I keep telling folks that all I got for my efforts was a nasty head-cold but I'm just being facetious. I wouldn't give back that experience for anything. After the absentee ballots are counted we'll have a look at the turnout numbers by party and get to work party building.

I'll never forget it, a couple of days after Tim pulled his batcrap insane shenanigans on Rose Mary, I drove by his house on my way to school and both parties had removed ALL of the lawn signs from his house.

That is the epitome of irrelevance.

Chris, you can’t give up now. It takes time and effort to find likeminded people and then get them to act.

I think when you finish looking at the turnout numbers you’re going to see an extremely low turnout for Democrats or a lot of shotgun voting. Democrats were not motivated to go to the polls or vote for the whole ticket if they did. Vote ranges from 500-700 are real bad when you look at the recent historical Council returns. When Tim Buckley and I ran for at large, we both had over 2000 votes and that was on an off year election as well. The Democrat Council candidate with the least amount of votes that year had around 1000. Looking back at prior Council election years, that 1000 vote level for Dems was about right.

My thinking says the Council races failed to attract enough Democratic voters and that hurt the Legislative races real bad. If you go with those numbers, each district was missing between 150-200 democratic votes that it would have normally had during even a losing effort. Those totals would have made both Legislative races look a lot different.

Charlie, I think you're probably right. We spent just under a thousand bucks on GOTV and it turned out to be fruitless. Folks around here seem to be a little leery of Dems right now. Some of it, for obvious reasons, is because of the state of the State and of course Dems are notoriously lazy when it comes to heading to the polls.

I've discussed party building in committee before and I intend to beat the issue like a rented mule from here on out. We have a congressional race to win next year :)

Charlie,
How much do you think your backing of two Republican city council candidates kept Democrat turn out low?

It might not have made any impact, your thoughts?

Chris,
I think you were hurt by a very weak city council race by the Democrats. True, Phil was out there, but as a "team", they did not work well, keeping voter turnout low.

Phil,
While I did not support you, I think you ran a great race also.

John, I think Charlie wants to be a republican....ha

John, this election had nothing to do with me. My speculation today about vote totals has nothing to do with my personal leanings or desired outcome. I have always supported the people I thought would do the best job. I’m not even a member of the Democratic Committee and my picks for office have never been solely based on political party even when I was. My record when it comes to elections shows I pick people over party every time. I supported Bill Cox and Steve Hawley last election along with several Democrats. The one before that, I supported you when you were a Conservative and Tim Buckley for Council. This year I helped Phil go door to door and supported Marianne and Tim Buckley again.

There is too much partisanship in Town. The decisions made on Council have nothing to do with national political affiliation. Council is made up of individuals. If you were paying attention you would have seen Tim, Frank, Marianne and I voted in lockstep for the last two years. That had nothing to do with party politics.

Posted by Daniel Jones on November 5, 2009 - 9:23am
I'll never forget it, a couple of days after Tim pulled his batcrap insane shenanigans on Rose Mary, I drove by his house on my way to school and both parties had removed ALL of the lawn signs from his house.

That is the epitome of irrelevance.

Then you missed his paint job on the Democratic Council at Large sign. Too bad, I'm sure he considered it a work of art. Perhaps he can explain why the Republicans removed their signs from the lawn of party member.