If you’ve been waiting to submit your written testimony to the Charter Advisory Committee, now’s the time.  If you haven’t reviewed the Committee’s preliminary recommendations, check them out at  www.somervillema.gov/cos_content/documents/PreliminaryRecommendations1.pdf.  Here are my thoughts:

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With your last scheduled meeting coming up Thursday, December 4, I am writing to urge the Charter Advisory Committee (CAC) to extend the process of developing recommendations for Charter Reform. I encourage you to schedule a second public hearing, and to use all available media outlets and list serves to publicize your current recommendations and the hearing date/time.

Restructuring city government is a big deal; if we are going to revise the City’s Charter, Somerville residents deserve the fullest opportunity to be informed and to participate. Your preliminary recommendations were not available to the public prior to the November 10 hearing, there was little publicity about the hearing, there has been little if any publicity about your recommendations, and (through no fault of yours) there was little media coverage of the hearing.

The biblical “eye of a needle” metaphor is an apt description of the CAC’s challenge: to make Somerville government more efficient, more accountable and transparent, and more representative… and to get the support of the Mayor and Board of Aldermen for your proposed changes. While the interests of efficiency would be best served by consolidating power in the Mayor’s office, the interests of accountability and transparency would be advanced by creating more checks and balances in city government, including fuller and more informed participation by the Board of Aldermen in the process of creating the capital and operating budgets and other legislation, by requiring more complete and more timely public dissemination of information about pending legislation and budgetary proposals, and by sharply restricting the influence of the Mayor in personnel matters.

Finding the perfect balance and building consensus for your proposal is no easy job, and you are to be congratulated for even taking on this difficult task. I am concerned, however, that in your preliminary recommendations, you appear to have missed the opportunity to propose the kind of substantive changes that are needed, and have instead, largely opted to preserve the status quo.

In his remarks at last week’s PDS meeting, Committee member Greg Nadeau mentioned that there are additional, as-yet-unpublished CAC recommendations, and that members have been re-thinking some of their recommendations in light of the testimony they received and in light of subsequent discussions that they have had with one another.

In hopes that there is still time for further deliberations, I reiterate my call for a more extended public process, and offer the following specific feedback/recommendations:

(1) Don’t exacerbate the existing imbalance of power between the Mayor and Board of Aldermen by extending only the Mayor’s term. If you increase the term of the Mayor, then similarly increase the terms of Aldermen. (If you recommend four-year terms for Aldermen, consider staggering the election of Aldermen at Large and Ward Aldermen, so that, for example, the election for Mayor and At-Large Aldermen occurs in 2009 and the election for Ward Aldermen occurs in 2011.)

Reducing the frequency of elections may reduce accountability, but it will give elected officials more time to focus on their responsibilities, and less need to focus on the next election. To offset the reduction in accountability, consider putting more teeth into disclosure laws, requiring that ethics filings of candidates be posted on the Web without redactions. As you may recall, when local newspapers attempted to obtain copies of those ethics filings, the City Solicitor returned copies in which all of the useful information was blacked out, an action that was upheld by the State Ethics Commission. If we want to ensure that voters have real and timely access to legally mandated disclosures, we apparently will have to explicitly require dissemination of information contained in those disclosures as part of Somerville law.

(2) Take stronger steps to remove nepotism from City government and to professionalize the municipal workforce. The Mayor currently has full control of the hiring process. Your proposal creating a Chief Administrative Officer appointed by and reporting to the Mayor would solidify that control, even if you give the Board of Aldermen power to approve or reject the Mayor’s choice for the CAO position.

The School Superintendent is hired by the School Committee on a multi-year contract, and his staff is charged with making personnel decisions. I believe that transparency and accountability would be best served by similarly placing responsibility for oversight of the proposed Chief Administrative Officer with the Board of Aldermen, thereby dramatically reducing the Mayor’s influence over municipal personnel decisions, and helping to increase the stability and professionalism of the City workforce.

Because I believe that electing a Mayor gives voters an important role in determining how their city should evolve, and because I believe that the election of Chief Executive provides a unique opportunity to measure the pulse of the voters, I am not ready to suggest that we move to a City Manager type of government, in which the Mayor’s is largely a ceremonial role. Although I would like to curtail the Mayor’s influence over routine personnel decisions, I recognize the important link between policy and senior personnel, and would give the Mayor the opportunity to interview and choose between the two or three finalists identified by the BOA for the CAO position, and to interview and choose between the two or three finalists identified by the CAO for other Department Head positions. These Department heads would, however, report to the CAO, and their tenure would be based on performance and not political considerations.

(3) Build more accountability into the process of creating operating and capital budgets:

(a) by empowering the Board of Aldermen to either increase or decrease line item amounts proposed in the Mayor’s budget, subject to spending limits based on the revenue projections you require elsewhere in your recommendations, and to make changes in line item language … all of which would be subject to veto or final approval by the Mayor;

(b) by articulating clear timelines for both budgetary processes (capital and operating) that include public hearings at the beginning of each process, before the Mayor develops his/her recommendations, and again, when the Mayor’s recommendations come before the Board of Aldermen, and

(c) by requiring that the Mayor’s recommendations become available in print and via the Web a minimum of ten business days prior to any public hearing or deliberations by the Board of Aldermen.

Currently, the Mayor has virtually full authority to prepare the City’s operating budget. The Board of Aldermen — which is only allowed to reduce line item “recommendations”, and has no power to make any other changes — receives the mayor’s budget “proposal” a few weeks before the start of the fiscal year, holds a perfunctory public hearing, and essentially acts as a rubber stamp. The BOA typically plays even less of a role when it comes to capital projects, sometimes not even seeing the details of a project much before being asked to approve the sale of bonds to finance it.

Your recommendations that the Mayor be required “to submit an operating budget to the Board of Aldermen with a reasonable period of time for the Board of Aldermen to act on the budget before the start of the fiscal year” and “to submit an annual Capital Improvement Program to the Board of Aldermen with a reasonable period of time before the start of the fiscal year” are baby steps in the right direction; I urge you to do more to create the kind of checks and balances and accountability that Somerville residents deserve.

It may be argued that there simply isn’t enough time for a more deliberative process before the July 1start of the fiscal year, given that we often don’t know the level of State Aid that will be allocated to Somerville until June. There is no reason, however, why the City can’t adopt a temporary, provisional budget, based on revenue projections, and then engage in a robust deliberative process to decide the spending priorities for the rest of the fiscal year. For example:

· If revenues are projected to remain the same or increase, implement level funding for the first 1-2 months of the new fiscal year, while the BOA and Mayor work out the new budget

· If revenues are projected to decrease, direct the Mayor to implement proportional spending reductions for the first 1-2 months of the new fiscal year, while the BOA and Mayor work out the new budget

(4) Largely Retain the Current Structure of the School Committee

Perhaps the most vigorously debated recommendations was the Charter Advisory Committee’s proposal to remove the Mayor and President of the BOA from the School Committee, and to replace them with appointed members “selected based on specific criteria including educational expertise and diversity.” Although the CAC neglected to say how these members should be appointed, I think it is safe to assume that everyone in the room assumed that appointments would be made by the Mayor.

Nobody objects to removal of the Mayor and President of the BOA from the Committee; apparently, they don’t attend most of the meetings anyway. Much concern, however was expressed about how power would be shared between appointed and elected members, and about the loss of accountability if appointed members had an equal say (and vote) on matters as elected representatives. I share those concerns. School Committee member Mary Jo Rossetti, apparently speaking for many of her colleagues, made the most impassioned argument against appointed members, wondering why the School Committee had been singled out as needing supplementary expertise, and suggesting that, perhaps the Board of Aldermen could likewise benefit from the same kind of supplementation.

In my testimony, I noted that Ward-based School Committee members are increasingly concerned with citywide matters (both because there is only a single high school, and because children frequently attend schools that are outside the Ward in which their parents vote). Several of us suggested creation of citywide School Committee positions as a strategy for broadening representation, as an alternative to adding appointed positions. In retrospect, however, I should have known better than to suggest that creating citywide positions would offer candidates from under-represented constituencies a better opportunity to gain a seat on the School Committee than Ward-based races, given the daunting costs in time and money of running a citywide race.

More work is needed to address the question of promoting better representation of under-represented constituencies, but that need for broader-based representation is not confined to the Somerville School Committee; it pertains to the Somerville Board of Aldermen … and to just about every other elected body in just about every other city and town in Massachusetts … and beyond. If appointed members are part of the solution to this problem — on either the BOA or the School Committee — then these members should not be given voting rights, but their concerns and support or opposition with respect to measures considered by those bodies should become part of the public record.

(5) Implement Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in all citywide and ward-based elections, allowing voters to rank as many of the candidates as they are willing to name on their ballot, and further clarify the process of filling vacancies, such that only candidates named on a majority of ballots in the most recent (citywide or Ward-based) election can be appointed to fill vacancies. [At present, voters can only vote for four At-Large Aldermanic candidates, and so the winners often have fewer than 50% of the votes cast; if voters had the option of ranking as many of the candidates as they were willing to name on their ballot, then even a fifth place finisher could conceivably appear on a majority of ballots.]

As discussed by a number of people testifying at the public hearing and described at www.instantrunoff.com:

· IRV allows voters to rank the candidates instead of having to choose between the candidate they truly prefer and the candidate they are willing to settle for who has the best chance of defeating the candidate they least prefer. (Voters would only rank candidates they were willing see elected.)

· IRV would eliminate the need for expensive preliminary/primary elections, saving the City up to $50,000 per election.

· IRV would eliminate the notion of “wasted” votes: voters could cast their ballot for the candidate they truly prefer, knowing that their vote could be reallocated to their second-choice candidate, once their preferred candidate was officially eliminated from contention in the election contest.

And, as discussed above, if we move to a system of filling mid-term vacancies with the next-highest finisher from the previous election, we could ensure that vacant seats were only filled by candidates who were ranked (and therefore seen as acceptable) by a majority of voters.

Without an IRV voting system, the Charter Advisory Committee’s proposed that vacancies in elected office be filled by “the candidate receiving the next highest number of votes in the previous election, given a high minimum vote threshold and specific time period” lacks adequate clarity: Did you mean to include the Mayor and all Ward and At-Large Aldermen and School Committee positions in this recommendation? While the public might be happy elevating the candidate who finished fifth in the race for the four Alderman-at-Large seats, would we really want to empower the losing candidate in a Mayoral race or in a Ward race if that candidate had lost by more than 5-10% of the vote? While many of us would be happy to see an end to the quaint practice of allowing the Board of Aldermen to appoint the successor to a member who leaves in the second year of his/her term, would we be ready to give that seat to a candidate who failed to earn the trust of a near-majority of the electorate?

(6) Allow full public discussion of any proposals for Charter changes relative to “recall” elections and referenda, and consider additional strategies for enhancing transparency and accountability.

In his conversation with the attendees at last week’s PDS meeting, Greg Nadeau indicated that in the interest of enhancing accountability, the Charter Advisory Committee was considering changes that would allow “recall” elections and that would simplify the process of citizen-originated legislation. These may very well be worthy changes to the City Charter, but in the interest of “accountability”, the public deserves an opportunity to see them in writing and to comment on them at a second public hearing.

Affording ordinary residents the opportunity to place legislative proposals on the ballot is no small matter, but it is not a substitute for imbuing the existing legislative process with greater transparency and accountability:

· It is too easy for members of the Board of Aldermen (often acting at the behest of the Mayor) to insert and vote on last minute agenda items or to propose and vote on substantive amendments that have never been subject to public or legislative scrutiny. The Charter Advisory Committee should consider imposing limitations on the ability of the Board of Aldermen to act on substantive (vs. ceremonial) matters that have not been subject to adequate public or legislative review, except if such action has been authorized by a supermajority vote affirming the urgency of such action.

· It is too easy for Committee Chairs to advance or kill legislative proposals by scheduling Committee hearings and deliberations with little or no public notice. The Charter Advisory Committee should consider imposing a 10-business-day notification requirement before legislation assigned to Committee can be scheduled for a public hearing, and imposing a 5-business-day notification requirement before such legislation can be brought before the Committee for a vote.

· With 21^st century technology, it is possible to more widely disseminate information about legislative, budgetary, and regulatory proposals, and information about scheduled public hearings and timetables for government action. It is likewise possible to specifically target such information to persons who have expressed an explicit interest in being notified about such matters, or whose residence or business address identifies them as an affected party. While the Charter Advisory Committee may not wish to prescribe specific mechanisms for getting such information to City residents and persons doing business in the City, an important step in the right direction would be to create a Commission on Public Information to advise the City with respect to strategies for increasing transparency and accountability by improving municipal practices for disseminating such information.