Tag Cloud
Friday, February 10, 2012
Setting the Record Straight
by Ronald West, published on September 28, 2009 at 10:09 AM
Storyline: Strong Mayor Initiative
Editor's Note: Ronald West is a consultant for Sacramentans for Accountable Government and Mayor Kevin Johnson's brother.
Here's how you can tell Sacramento political insiders are getting desperate to stop the city's charter reform movement: They are already lying about reform, nine months before the election.
The beauty of charter reform is its simplicity. The voting public will have total control. Come June 2010, Sacramento voters will decide whether to modernize their city charter and create a strong mayor system, or keep business as usual. That's the whole debate.
You know opponents of reform are worried because they are trying to complicate that simple statement, scare voters with falsehoods, even make stuff up. It's desperation time and the campaign hasn't even started.
The first lie involves the concept of strong mayor. Opponents want to make charter reform and strong mayor government sound exotic, even dirty. Reality is that 31 of the 50 biggest cities in the U.S. have strong mayors. It's nothing exotic.
Strong mayors exist in all corners of America, from Honolulu to Miami, plus Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Jacksonville, Milwaukee, Louisville, Atlanta and Oakland (to name a few). Our biggest cities -- New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia -- have long enjoyed strong mayors.
Charter reform opponents are trying to scare city employees and their families by saying a strong mayor can fire everybody. Not true. Most city employees are covered by civil service rules and collective bargaining contracts. When it comes to firing people, the answer is simple: no way.
Certain senior managers can be fired under charter reform. They are the same senior staff who can be fired today by the City Manager. The difference with reform is that the Mayor will have to answer to voters. A non-elected City Manager operates in near silence and secrecy.
More scare tactics and lies involve veto power. The right of the Mayor to veto City Council legislation is crucial to bringing checks and balances to Sacramento City Hall. Under reform, the Council can override vetoes and approve many mayoral decisions, including the budget. Reform foes suggest veto power weakens checks and balances. The opposite is true.
Opponents claim reform is rushed. Really? It's been more than 70 years in the making. The strong mayor system starts one month after the June election -- one year from the strong mayor's first budget. If that's rushing things, our grandchildren will be lucky to live long enough to see real reform.
Finally, reform opponents claim strong mayor revisions blur the lines of authority. The lines could hardly be more blurred than today, when 13 people have senior authority at City Hall, including four charter officers and nine council members. Nobody knows who's in charge -- because nobody is. That's the problem.
With strong mayor reform, the citizens of Sacramento will know know the buck stops at the Mayor's desk. What a concept.
Conversation Express your views,
debate, and be heard with those in your area closest
to the issue.
Leave a Comment
Reform isn't rushed! I mean, just because the mayor started the process immediately after he became mayor and it was put on the ballot before a charter review committee could even begin looking at it...psh...I mean, that's not rushed or anything.
And the city manager does work in silence and secrecy! I mean, come on, just because he has to answer to the city council doesn't mean anything! It means that he's scary and going to take over everything! *hides*
And just because the mayor can fire the higher up management doesn't mean they'll be beholden to him for their jobs and push through projects for him and thus create a system where he must be pleased in order for them to keep their jobs or anything... psh!
And it's not scary that we're having a Strong Mayor Initiative. After all it's in a number of other California cities! I mean granted, it's different from all of them in one way or another, like no ethics committee and the mayor having the ability to fire all staff including the city attorney and others. But I mean...other than that it's exactly the same, while being entirely different.
And last, just because the Mayor formed the charter review committee after he'd already placed his initiative on the ballot, and now he isn't listening to their findings and isn't planning on revising the initiative, doesn't mean anything...right?
If this is about "accountability" and Mr. West is accusing others of lying, his lie of omission puts the lie to his claims.
Simple. "That's the whole debate."
Choose misleading tactics from those who count on an uninformed public buying their bumper sticker explanations and selling out the community's founding charter document
OR
Choose accurate information that affects the historic community political process -- which was structured to prevent the sort of Boss Mayor KJ hopes to be -- for long after Johnson is gone.
The mayor never once seemed interested in the city of Sacramento before he ran for mayor. Why now? Why the sudden interest now? I think he wants the schools and has got to get the strong mayor passed in order to go there. The national trend of education reform is right up Kevin's alley and I think he thought Sacramento's schools were ripe for the picking. I believe this is all about Kevin and his school agenda, not what's best for the city. What say you?
This statement is a lie. The Sacramento "strong mayor" initiative is not the same as "strong mayor" in other cities. It provides the Mayor more power than in other "strong mayor" cities, with fewer controls: no term limits, no ethics committee, far more control over the bureaucracy. It's custom-designed for dirty politics. Considering this project's main support (wealthy developers), its crafting (a right-wing attorney) and the extraordinarily sleazy firm hired to gather signatures (well-known for lying to people to get signatures, and bribing homeless people with food for their signatures, and still producing large percentages of bogus petition results) it's hard to see how this sort of hinkiness won't be a model for a "strong mayor" if this passes. So yeah, dirty.
"Charter reform opponents are trying to scare city employees and their families by saying a strong mayor can fire everybody. Not true. Most city employees are covered by civil service rules and collective bargaining contracts. When it comes to firing people, the answer is simple: no way."
This statement is a lie; it implies that city employees cannot be fired for any reason. Civil service rules and collective bargaining contracts allow for firing, and the Mayor will gain that power under this initiative. The Strong Mayor initiative also deletes entirely a clear delineation of who enters into contracts for the city, but the mayor will probably take that power--which means he becomes the signing authority for collective bargaining agreements. More power consolidated in fewer hands.
"Finally, reform opponents claim strong mayor revisions blur the lines of authority. The lines could hardly be more blurred than today, when 13 people have senior authority at City Hall, including four charter officers and nine council members. Nobody knows who's in charge -- because nobody is. That's the problem."
That's not true either. The council/manager model is a model of the corporate world, with a Board of Directors, a president of the Board, and a CEO. It works well in the corporate world because it lets the Board (or Council) direct policy, with a policy leader (the president of the Board or mayor) to direct the Board. This leaves the CEO (the city manager), a trained professional at running organizations instead of a politician, to run the city. HE CAN BE FIRED AT ANY TIME by the City Council.
Veto power is meaningless in this context, because currently the Mayor votes as a member of the same body. The other ridiculous flaw of this initiative is its failure to clearly delineate when the "ninth district" will be created, leaving the Mayor in a position where he can vote for his projects, PLUS have a veto, PLUS the ability to vote against votes to overturn his veto. It turns the concept of checks and balances on its head.
The "Strong Mayor" initiative is the reverse of democracy. It is about consolidating power in fewer hands, with only the elites (and certain select friends, like the mayor's brother-in-law) retaining access and favor.
2 + 2 = 4.
KJ is not Obama (as you have pointed out here before).
St. HOPE is not Sac High.
Payoffs are not innocence.
Mr. Burg, your fact-based comments make one wonder even more why the Mayor's spokesmen want to come to SacPress, insult the public, get us arguing about which side they part their hair on, while they make false claims, without ever actually posting substantive and informative articles or comments.
It's all Flim, Flam, Thank You, Ma'am. Clearly the Mayor's brother has been sent out with a new script -- "reform" is the new "accountability" -- but why do they continue to think the public will fall for this? Is it effective for them in the one on one meetings, the pep rallies with Johnson cheerleading like he did at the kickoff for the SMI petition drive? Are they hoping enough people will pick up mindless phrases to repeat, to smooth the way toward election day?
My current favorite nonsense? I can't decide between: "Modernize or business-as-usual. That's the whole debate" or "The Strong Mayor Initiative. It's nothing exotic." Now THERE'S a bumpersticker. (How is "exotic" now a "dirty" word? -- it's hard to keep up..........)
Your comments -- and this one in particular -- need to be recorded as ARTICLES on SacPress. Please. This one was particularly excellent.
Thank you.
Rather than you and SM continuing to pretend that this SMI is "the same" as any number of other cities, you come clean about the differences. (Or at least quit lying about that point).
Your current supporters (hopefully), the fence sitters and the opponents of a Boss Johnson, would all be interested in contributions from you that were substantive, not merely combative.
Since "reform" is being tested as the new buzz word...it would be prudent to have a discussion about the legalese difference of "revision" vs "amend" as spelled out in the State constitution with regards to city and county charters.
We have heard some of the chatter about prop 8 not meeting that threshold with regards to revising vs amending the state constitution, however with regards to local goverments:
our state constitution article 11 sec3(b)
(b) The governing body or charter commission of a county or city
may propose a charter or revision. Amendment or repeal may be
proposed by initiative or by the governing body.
So what's the difference?
Here's one opinion of "revision" at the state constitutional level...
“far reaching changes in the nature of our basic governmental plan,” or, stated in slightly different terms, that “substantially alter[s] the basic governmental framework set forth in our Constitution.”
Your little media outlet is becoming known for acting as a virtual front for this mayor's pathological aggression. I should think you'd be ashamed of such a role.
How hungry you must be to sink so low...
Shame on you...
Your OBVIOUS hypocrisy is exposed, and will continue to be, here, and elsewhere...
Again, shame on you!
You can always contact me at support@sacramentopress.com if you want to discuss a particular comment.