Republican Corner: Keeping Our Cities in Line
By Post Scripts on August 20, 2010 6:00 AM | 7 Comments
By Steve Thompson, Chairman of the Butte County Republican Party
I recently wrote about city taxes and decentralization of power. I’m a firm believer in returning as much power back to the local level as possible, and power goes hand in hand with funding. But this is not to say that cities do not have their problems, or room for reform. In fact cities and towns are a really good example of why voters need to be better informed and vigilant.
Most cities operate with a typical five-person council and a weak mayor. By weak they just mean that the mayor does not have veto power and is usually selected by their peers. It’s the rare city that elects their mayor separately and gives them more power. All too often in smaller towns (and let me be clear that Chico is not typical here), there will be barely enough council candidates to even have elections, and usually it’s with candidates who don’t know as much as they should for the job they’re undertaking.
Smaller city councils often don’t find themselves wrapped in the usual partisan political struggles of larger cities. Instead they’re in a different struggle. Too often it’s a power struggle between the elected leaders and the city staff.
Now my small disclaimer here, is that there are some very good people working on city staffs all over. I studied at Chico State under local legend Tom Lando himself. The staff at Chico is very professional and likely wouldn’t try anything with a council as involved as Chico’s.
In smaller cities, however, it’s a different story. Inexperienced councilors find themselves outmatched with city administrators who know the ropes all too well. The Brown Act keeps them from conversing with other council members unless it’s in a public setting, usually with city staff present. Councilors rely on their staff to tell them all the options at their disposal so they can make informed choices. But what if staff tells them the virtues of option A and B, but completely leaves out the viable option C? Doesn’t seem like such a big deal when we’re talking about sidewalks, but what if it’s a general plan? Can you begin to see how the City of Bell ended up with such a grossly overpaid administrator?
Most city administrators that I know take their jobs and their responsibilities seriously. They know that their duty is to answer to the city council, who in turn answers to the people. Unfortunately there are sometimes those administrators who figure out how to turn things around. An administrator making over $100,000 in a small town has a lot of disposable income to play in local elections, and what would stop them from directing funds to candidates loyal to themselves? With a five person council, all it would take is three council members loyal to the administrator.
If this was happening in your town or city, would you know about it? Do you know how much your city administrator is paid? Or how many management positions your city has in relation to how many positions total? The strongest defense against corruption at city hall is an informed, and vigilant, electorate. That means you and me, the voter, paying attention and voting accordingly.
If we are to turn our country around, we have to learn to start locally first. We have to take a stand against the abuses of government power at all levels, even if it’s more interesting to talk about Congress and President Obama’s latest public gaffes.
I believe in decentralization, and in the empowering of local government against state and federal authority. But it would be for nothing if we let our city officials behave as they did in Bell, CA. On the local level our vote has the strongest impact, just as its misuse brings the greatest waste. Call your local council members. Meet with them, and find out what they believe in. Find out if they know what’s going on at city hall. Get involved or watch our country keep going down the drain.
