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Charter Reform: Bill Shelton’s Thoughts, Public Hearing 11/10

by in Government Reform, Politics
Posted on November 6, 2008 at 2:30 am
Last Modified on December 1, 2008 at 11:08 pm

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In anticipation of next week’s public hearing on Charter Reform (Monday, Nov. 10 at 7pm at City Hall), Fred Berman and Bill Bumpus interviewed local activist Bill Shelton, who favors a City Manager form of government, as compared with our current ”Strong Mayor” form of government…..

Why is this important now?

Earlier this year, Mayor Joe Curtatone convened a Charter Advisory Committee as a first step towards exploring options for amending the City’s Charter, and redefining the way our City government works.  Depending upon the kinds of changes enacted, we could either increase or diminish the powers and independence of the Mayor, the Board of Aldermen, and/or the School Committee.

Mayor Curtatone’s initial proposal would double from 2 to 4 years the Mayor’s term and add to the powers of the position.

On their November 10th Progressive Voices program on SCAT, Fred Berman and Bill Bumpus discussed charter reform with Bill Shelton, an activist with the Mystic View Task Force and STEP, who has proposed changes that would reduce the Mayor’s powers, and vest most of the responsibility for City government operations in a City Manager. (Fred didn’t remember to start taping until a minute or two into the conversation, so the video starts with Fred’s head buried in the tape deck.)

What kinds of changes in the City Charter would YOU like to see? The City of Somerville’s Charter Advisory Committee (CAC) has scheduled a public hearing for Monday, November 10th at 7pm in the Aldermanic Chambers in City Hall (93 Highland Ave.) to discuss the work of the Committee and to receive comments from the public.   This is an opportunity to put your opinion on the record.  For the full press release, see http://www.somervillema.gov/NewsDetail.cfm?instance_id=1340.   For summaries of meetings of the Charter Advisory Committee, see http://www.somervillema.gov/spotlight.cfm?id=67

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2 Responses to “Charter Reform: Bill Shelton’s Thoughts, Public Hearing 11/10”

  1. Steve Roix says:
    November 6, 2008 at 11:59 am

    It’s funny to hear this having lived in Worcester – which has had a city manager, “weak mayor” form of government for many years. People in Worcester were always griping about how we needed a “strong mayor” to fix all the city’s problems.

    My layman’s opinion, having lived for 8+ years in Worcester and now almost 5 years in Somerville, is that Somerville is by far the more well-run city. I’m not sure how much that has to do with the form of government vs. the personnel involved and general differences in the cities.

    I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.

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  2. Barry Rafkind says:
    November 10, 2008 at 12:33 am

    I submitted the following comments to the committee in an email to CharterAdvisoryCommittee(at)somervillema.gov

    This charter advisory committee did not have enough time to deliberate or solicit public comment on the myriad ideas that it discussed. The net result is a rushed sham advisory process that ends up recommending the mayor’s proposals.

    The CAC membership selection process was not transparent. We don’t know how many people applied or by what method the members were chosen. No ethics reports were submitted or made available to the public.

    We don’t know which legal process has been proposed that would follow the stated plan of approval by the BOA, then by the Mass legislature, and then by the residents. This should be made clear to the public asap.

    The mayor already has too much power in city government, so there is no reason to expand his powers further by giving him flexibility to reorganize departments or appoint members of the school committee, for instance. Instead, we need to decentralize the power of the mayor into a city council that would hire a professional manager run city operations such as would be defined by the Plan D form. I recommend that the committee study and propose the Plan D form as defined in MGL 43 Sec 79-92A

    I recommend that charter changes include the adoption of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) to eliminate the need for costly and time-consuming preliminary elections. For more information click here or go to SomervilleIRV.org.

    Make public the extent of the CAC’s review of other charters and the advantages/disadvantages determined for the various differences found.

    Make public all the public comments submitted to the CAC without revealing the names of the people who made submissions.

    I recommend not extending the term of the mayor or of any other elected official. Shorter terms keep elected officials more accountable to the voters.

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