Half Measures

At last night's meeting of the Board of Mayor and Aldermen, I was disappointed at what I perceive as half measures by some of my fellow aldermen.

Aldermen Bacon lead the charge, supported by Aldermen Burger, Kriebel, Lewis and Phillips, to dismiss the citizen members of the four "standing" committees of the BOMA (Budget and Finance, Transportation, Safety and Public Enterprise and Parks). As I understood the argument to dismiss the citizen members, it was that unelected citizens should not have the same "power" as the elected aldermen. Somehow, it was argued, the "power" of aldermen on the committees was diluted by the presence of the unelected committee membersl.

I made the following arguments in opposition to the motion to dismiss the citizen members:

1. The Mayor ran on a platform to increase citizen involvement in the government of the city, and the inclusion of citizen committee members is entirely consistent with this campaign promise. I am aware that some observers have scoffed that the Mayor has not fulfilled other campaign promises and that this assertion somehow rebuts my argument on this point. To those people I say: if you were promised 40 acres and a mule, aren't you still better off if you get only the 40 acres without the mule?;
2. By long standing custom, the organization of the committees has been the province of the mayor. This, in my opinion, is a matter about which the mayor should be afforded significant deference by the aldermen.
3. The "power" of the citizen members is not "power" in the sense that it could be dangerous because the committees cannot bind the city or the BOMA. No committee can kill a matter by pigeon-holing it. No citizen committee member has any more "power" than any member of the audience who wants to voice an opinion on a matter before the committee. Ultimately, the BOMA makes the decisions. The BOMA has regularly rejected the recommendation of a committee. I like to think the BOMA makes decisions based on the merit of the matter, not on how an advisory committee split a vote.
4. Citizen committee members with whom I have served have been decidedly more helpful than not. These citizen members have brought expertise and experience relevant to the subject matters that far exceeded my own or that of any other alderman, for that matter. Other citizen members have afforded insight of the "average joe" that is sometimes lost on the elected officials.

Now all of the above is something about which reasonable people may disagree. I can respect that.

What I was really disappointed about came a few minutes later. We had before us a nomination to the Historic Zoning Commission. I made the point that although by state law membership on the HZC and the Planning Commission are by appointment by the mayor, not one of the five aldermen who had just voted to fire our citizen committee members had balked in the least at appointments of unelected citizens to two truly powerful bodies. The HZC and the PC exercise real and final power, in many respects more power than the BOMA. Still, not a one of the five even peeped an opposition. I told them all, given their expressed opposition to unelected citizens wielding power at the city, that I expected them each to lobby for changes in the state law to prevent mayoral appointments of unelected people to truly powerful bodies. In the meantime, why haven't any of these five aldermen demanded that, pending a change in state law, the mayor use his power of appointment to appoint only elected BOMA members to the HZC and PC? Why haven't these five aldermen objected to the several appointments to the HZC and PC that have come before us recently?

I find the silence on this latter issue irreconcilable with the apoplexy on the former, and it makes me wonder what is really going on around here.