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Friday, February 10, 2012
R.E. Graswich opines
by David Watts Barton, published on January 28, 2009 at 4:03 PM
Storyline: From the Managing Editor
Former Sacramento Bee "three-dot" columnist R.E. Graswich was an early supporter of Kevin Johnson's campaign for mayor of Sacramento. But recent events have caused him to reconsider his support. This column was written specifically for SacramentoPress.com.
King Kevin?
By R.E. Graswich
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson promised to be different. Yet his first two months have featured one stumble after another. The collapse of Johnson’s self-indulgent “strong mayor” scheme proves Johnson has much to learn as he fills the vacuum of leadership at Sacramento City Hall. Sorry, Kevin wasn’t elected to be our king.
The mayor’s failures have been self-inflicted. Kevin has made the quest for more power his top priority, rather than solidifying support from council members. In the “strong mayor” push that ended today, Kevin made no serious effort to capitalize on the pulpit and megaphone that accompany the mayoral office. He sought to junk the job he was elected to hold, change the rules and reject a system that he doesn’t seem to comprehend.
The present council system, belittled by Kevin as outdated and straight out of Mayberry, wasn’t contrived by accident or naivety. It was designed to combat big-city problems that plagued Sacramento in the Roaring 20s – corruption and cronyism. The “weak mayor” rules evolved from community outrage over payoffs and backroom maneuvering. City residents only needed to read history before rejecting Kevin’s argument that we need to turn the page forward. By adopting a “strong mayor” system at the urging of a power-hungry pol, we would have turned the page back.
The drive to give Kevin more power and rewrite the city charter with an off-year ballot suggested arrogance and irresponsibility on Kevin’s part. Indeed, it could have been grounds for removal from office. A special election would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a city plagued by deficit. And the professionals gathering signatures were mercenaries paid $1 per name. Many were bused in from places like Missouri and Texas. That’s mayoral leadership?
The hucksters standing outside supermarket lied to unsuspecting rubes who signed the “strong mayor” petitions: “Do you know the city manager can’t be fired? Do you know the city council has no accountability? Do you know the mayor wants the people to decide?” In fact, an “aye” vote by six council members can fire the city manager with no debate. And council members have the same accountability as the mayor – they stand for election every four years.
If Kevin wants more power, he should try a tactic he has avoided: Work the room, sweet talk council members, make them see the wisdom in the Johnson Way. Council members love to be appreciated and respected, but Kevin has made minimal effort. He looked past the community’s elected representatives with disdain, and behaved as if the council’s cooperation was insignificant to his grand schemes. Kevin has spent his first several weeks acting like the Sun King. But storm clouds have gathered, and Sun Kings have a habit of getting drenched by democracy.
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What happened today? Was the petition rejected or something??
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/story/1580210.html
An election won't cost hundreds of thousands, but over a million. It will still cost hundreds of thousands if piggybacked onto a state election in November 2009 or 2010.
It just seems like Mayor Johnson is unwilling to even learn how the current system works. Part of the "strong mayor" effort included an elected "independent auditor" position, but the city currently hires an outside auditor every three years, a CPA on a competitively bid contract, who reports to the mayor and council. There is also a finance board that reviews and audits city finance staff. There used to be an independent analyst position, but it proved very problematic and controversial, and was replaced by the current system.
Having to be elected to the "independent auditor" position would make that post one requiring strong political backing, and that means getting lots of contributions from business. That means whoever is elected to the position is beholden to their financial backers.
The current "city manager" system means that the person who runs the city staff is beholden to the city council (as mentioned above, the council can fire the city manager at any time with a two-thirds vote) but if the city manager's job becomes a subset of the mayor's office, the same obligation to political backers comes into play.
* The independent budget analyst (not "auditor") is not an elected position; it would be appointed by the Council. It's similar to the highly respected legislative budget analyst for the state legislature. The analyst would provide non-biased budgetary information and recommendations.
* According to the county registrar, piggybacking charter reform to a statewide special election would cost about $500,000 less than a stand-alone election. As you may know, the Governor and Legislature are likely to call for a special election in 2009 anyway. Kevin NEVER wanted this to be a stand-alone election, hence the early push to get signatures in the event of a June 2009 election that apparently is not going to materialize.
* Signatures aren't turned into the Secretary of State. They are turned into the City Clerk.
* Because of record registration levels in last year's presidential campaign and because the effort was done solely in the city, the verification levels were high enough that the 74,000+ signatures that were received would likely have qualified the measure for the June ballot.
*And you're right on the last point -- but it's not a good thing. The City Manager has NINE bosses instead of one.
"City residents only needed to read history before rejecting Kevin’s argument that we need to turn the page forward. By adopting a “strong mayor” system at the urging of a power-hungry pol, we would have turned the page back"
The so called "Real World," where folks make half an effort to be informed before signing on to gather signatures or maybe even sign a petition?
Or the KJ KoolAid world where "read history" can't compete with celebrity cheerleading of a slew of meaningless slogans.
If you were in the room at the Petition Kick Off, you may have some idea of how Info Free -- and completely Orwellian -- the whole escapade was: the less informed the better.
There was a gathering afterward -- with the lawyer/drafter and promoter/sharer of Obama's email list -- of those whose BS detectors were politely going off. Meanwhile, the paid-per-signature folks were already working overtime at the storefronts.
Thanks for adding a bit to Sacramentans' understanding of the process and why it is the way it is.
RE mentions that the last charter reform was the 1920's. He's exactly right. And the "strong mayor" system of government is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Fresno, San Diego, and most other cities the size of Sacramento have moved to this system of government. Why? Because it works.
As for the signature gatherers, unfortunately, this is the way it is to get anything on the ballot. It's almost impossible to gather signatures by Internet (the specifics of the petition mandated by law make it nearly technically impossible), so folks are hired to gather the signatures.
Kevin is no more "power hungry" than other Mayors with a vision, whether they be in small towns or big cities. Under the current system -- generously described as "consensus" -- decisions take forever. The name of the game is compromise, not boldness. For example, love him or hate him, Gavin Newsom has done some sweeping things in SF that could NEVER be done here. On the conservative side, Alan Autry has done the same in Fresno. That simply can't be done with a "weak" Mayor. And the beauty of a strong mayor system is that voters can hold the Mayor accountable at the ballot box. In Sacramento, we can only blame the city manager.
Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago, the City Manager axed eight people from their jobs in the city's development department. Not a single council member nor the Mayor had any say in that decision. It was made in the afternoon, and the next day your elected members got "talking points" from the City Manager's office. It may well have been a smart decision, but is this the process that is the most accountable to voters? No way Jose.
What's fascinating to me is that there was almost no discussion on the merits of the proposal that was put forward. Most of it was like some of the comments here -- some people simply don't want to give Kevin Johnson the power to do his job. We have a full-time mayor -- without full-time responsibilities.
I also would like to take exception to the comment that Kevin didn't have a mandate. A 57-43 percent margin of victory (particularly over an entrenched, two-term incumbent supported by the Democratic Party's machine) was impressive. It's significantly more than Obama got on a national scale. Just imagine if Obama had to get approval from eight others at the same level. Instead, he has a Executive/Legislative relationship with Congress -- just like the "strong mayor" system would have set up here.
The effort is simply put on the backburner, and it will be back.
I'm curious--if you have such a big problem with the job Ray Kerridge is doing, why doesn't he get mentioned more in all of this? During the election, your people didn't say "The mayor is doing a bad job," they said "Fargo is doing a bad job." But if your problem is that the city manager isn't doing his job correctly, why hasn't any aspect of this campaign done anything to point out why Ray Kerridge, our current city manager, should be replaced? It seems like it would do nothing but help your campaign to give the public a personal target for the acrimony for the current system you're trying to generate...but you never seem to mention Kerridge. Is he such a perfect city manager that you haven't found anything to criticize?
Steve, if you wanted people to discuss the merits of the proposal, perhaps you should have discussed the proposal in a public forum, sought input, and explained its points to the community. Instead, the initiative was bounced out ready-made with no community participation or public discussion. I went to the kickoff meeting, heard the speeches and read the literature--all were very high on rhetoric and low on actual substance. The closest thing to a concrete example was the "filling your potholes" example, which was completely inaccurate under both the current system and under the charter changes.
Both the changes to the city manager/mayor jobs and the addition of an elected auditor job turn professional positions into political ones. Instead of answering to the electeds, who can terminate them at any time, they would answer to their financial backers, and can only be removed at election time--but if the financial backers are happy, money can be spent to paper over failings to other members of the community, enhancing chances for re-election.
I do totally agree with having an open forum to discuss the proposal on its merits and also perhaps alter it so it makes more sense. Now that it has been tabled for a few months let's start researching, debating, and discussing the proposal with an open mind.
I've seen enough council votes to know that a two-thirds majority (or an 8-1 or 9-0) isn't that uncommon; this isn't state or federal government where every vote is split down party lines and neither party has a supermajority. Although that two-thirds is tough enough where it's difficult to fire the city manager on a whim.
Joe
www.joesacramento.com