In our County Charter provision is made for the appointment of a Charter Review Commission to study and review the operation of the county government under the charter. If from such study and review the commission deems changes are necessary
In our County Charter provision is made for the appointment of a Charter Review Commission to study and review the operation of the county government under the charter. If from such study and review the commission deems changes are necessary or desirable the commission may propose amendments to be submitted to the voters.
In practice the processes of the commission are at significant variation from the charter language. The commission does not undertake any study or review, but rather relies for its agenda on items submitted or suggested by government officials and private citizens.
In 2006 the charter was amended to provide for a 10-year term for the commission to improve its ability to deal with issues that require in-depth analysis and lengthy discussion.
Although in testimony before the commission since the amendment both the mayor and the council chair have stated that they find the charter to be workable in its present form and were not advocating any changes, the administration and the council have directly or indirectly sought amendments.
It might be expected that the commission, an instrumentality intended to serve the interests of the people, would give equivalent treatment to both items from the public and from government officials. But this is not the history.
It is revealing to consider the proposals that have been made by the commission in 2008 and the ones now proposed for 2010.
All of the significant proposals made or now proposed have been offered by or are for the benefit of county officials rather than the general public. Here are a couple of illustrations. Until 2008 the charter provided that the County Council could only go into secret executive sessions to consider claims. For years the council had been overstepping this limit and citizens were protesting this infraction. Finding that obeying the law was too onerous the commission willingly accepted a proposed amendment to broaden the exemption and with the aid of misleading justification the amendment was voter-adopted. For years the council members have bridled over the fact that their term of office is only two years. On at least five occasions, the latest being in 2006, measures have been presented to the voters to authorize four-year terms for the council members. They have been each time defeated by the electorate. The commission has warmly accommodated the council’s wishes and the four-year term is on the commission agenda for a 2010 ballot proposal.
The only substantive issue that has been presented to the commission in the past four years by citizens has been the proposal to change our governmental form to a council-manager system. The contrast between how this proposal has been received by the commission to its treatment of county official-benefit measures is striking. Although the present commission knew that the county-manager issue was unfinished business from the earlier commission, for over 15 months after the election of 2006 which authorized the new commission, the issue received no attention. In February 2008 spurred by questions from one commission member, Walter Briant, the commission side-stepped any dealing with the matter by the commission itself and appointed Mr. Briant to a one-man committee to examine the concept. Although he tried to get the commission to consider a proposed form of a manager system until his death in November 2008, it was never acted on by the commission. In February 2009 at the instance of Carol Ann Davis-Briant, Mr. Briant’s widow, who had replaced him on the commission, it appointed a three-member committee to review the position. In November 2009 after two members of the committee had resigned the surviving member offered a statement suggesting that the issue be further studied. In March of this year a new, three-member committee was appointed by the commission on the subject. At the June 28 commission meeting the committee offered a report recommending that no council-manager measure be placed on the 2010 general election ballot. During this entire period the commission had not allowed the matter to be placed on its agenda for consideration.
The “so-called” findings by the committee in their report are seriously deficient, as they are principally conclusions without supporting facts. The report fails to address the reasons supporting the council-manager system other than the one that it provides an administrator for the county with education and training qualifications. The committee goes on to opine that such qualifications could be mandated for a mayoral aide presumably believing that such an enactment could be equivalent. However, the mission of the committee under the charter is to compare the proposal with the terms of the charter as it is not with a charter as they fancy it might be amended. Under our present charter the mayor is the county’s chief executive officer. He appoints the preponderance of the department heads and supervises them as is the typical role for a chief executive officer. Establishing higher qualifications for an assistant may be of value, but the performance of the chief is what determines efficiency. If he needs to depend on an assistant why do we need the boss?
But it is pointless to be critical of the report. It wasn’t intended as a thoughtful analysis. Instead it was designed as a passport to oblivion for the manager concept. The report will, almost certainly, be adopted by a grateful commission at its July 2010 meeting.
What emerges from this saga is that the commission is highly amenable to measures proposed by or benefiting government officeholders, but it has limited tolerance for concepts that are brought to it by members of the public. Do we not have a commission acting as a protective shield for officeholders rather than functioning for the general public’s interests? It is difficult to resist the notion that a commission appointed by our mayor will seek to serve his interests rather than the broader public interest.
• Walter Lewis is a resident of Princeville and writes a bi-weekly column for The Garden Island.
