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.
I want to clear up a few
I want to clear up a few errors Councilman Cox has made.
Mr. Cox forgets to tell you that a “NO” vote REQUIRES us to have both a City Engineer and an Assistant Manager, not one or the other, but BOTH. We do not need both and we want to eliminate the Engineer, which will save approx. $150,000 A YEAR, in salary and benefits. If the reforms are not passed, we end up forced to hire another employee and your taxes go up. That should not be acceptable to you.
Vote “no”, pay higher taxes. Vote “yes”, you save at least $150,000
Other points:
1) The changes to the Planning Board and Zoning Boards are in line with current State Law and were vetted by the City Attorney. While I understand his desire to control everything, this is not taking his authority away. He and all council members are the Managers boss, and the manager will appoint who they tell him/her to.
2) New York State Law states the Zoning and Planning Boards be between 3 and 5 members. The length of their term is based on the number of members. Three members, 3 year term. Council, five members, 5 years.
3) The new wording on Fire and Police MANDATES the City Council to provide both. But it allows the COUNCIL to decide how. Mr. Cox stated he supports shared services and this allows the Council to do that.
The old wording prevented shared services to save money.
4) Pay raises. The old cap of $2,000 has been in place in one form or another since 1994. It has not gone up. Yep, Mr. Cox is right, if (and that is only an if) Council was given a 2% raise, that would be $40 A YEAR or . 76 CENTS a week per person. Gasoline has gone up more than that in a year. I think Council deserves 76 CENTS a week raise after 15 YEARS. That’s fair and it might not even happen. Compare that to saving the $150,000 a year by voting “yes”.
5) Mr. Cox is against one person, one vote. The Charter reform requires Council to only review the ward boundaries once every 10 YEARS. Think about that, only once every 10 years! Even then, they might the wards might not be changed. The weighted voting idea is designed to give him and Councilman Bob Bialkowsi an advantage in Council votes with them having more people in their wards than some others, That’s just a power grab.
6) This section on the attorney is not changed, so his argument is moot and phony. The City Manager already appoints the City Attorney, with council approval. Council can still remove the attorney if the wish. But Mr, Cox wants to be able to hire a SECND attorney just for the 9 council members. We rejected that extra expense. We do not need 2 lawyers!!
7) Except for what authority is given the Manager by State Law, he/she has no power other than that given by the Council. The Manager is hired by the COUNCIL His duties, pay and hours of work are set by COUNCIL. If Council feels the need, COUNCIL can remove the Manager. So against his objection is phony.
Council keeps total control except for the 2 boards (Planning and Zoning) that the State now gives to managers,. But since in our case the manager works for council, he’ll appoint who the majority want. NOTHING ELSE changed.
The Sub Committee plan is not mandatory. It will be up to the majority of council to decided if they want to have them. But it works for Genesee County and is well worth giving future councils the ability to use them if they want, something that is forbidden right now. Why is he against choice?
He also forgets to tell you that the reforms MANDATE CITY RESIDENCE for all board, commissions and committees, something we do not have now.
A “YES” vote will bring us into compliance with State Law, save us at least $150,000 a year (and more in the future), and make city council more efficient.
True, you could end up paying each council member an extra 76 Cents a week, but I’d take that for saving !50,000 a year.
No member of the Charter Commission has anything to gain out of any of this (except for saving some money). None of us work for the city.
John Roach
Charter Commission Chair
I thought about the charter
I thought about the charter changes long and hard over the last few months. It is impossible for everyone to agree and I don’t like every detail either but, on the whole the changes are needed and the good far outweighs the bad.
John you and the rest of the commission have a lot to be proud of, you all did a fine job. Thank for your time and work on the commission.