Reducing the Size of Wilmington City Council
The NJ reported on this proposal by Councilman Bud Freel to reduce the size of City Council from 13 members to 9 on Monday. This evening, there will be a City Council meeting where there will be a debate and vote on a Resolution (pdf) from Charles Potter that opposes any reduction. His resolution has 7 co-sponsors, meaning that any plan to reduce the size of the City Council is probably dead. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be fireworks tonite.
The savings from eliminating 4 Council people is about $140,000. Not a great deal of money, but every bit counts when the City budget proposal is a sea of cutbacks (not enough) and tax hikes. And if you are paying attention, the budget situation isn’t likely to be much better for a few years. A City that is cutting back on some services can certainly take a look at its legislative body to rethink its own operation to see where they might contribute to the financial solution. A City Council that is likely to vote for tax increases can’t afford to be known as privileging themselves over taxpayers.
There is no doubt that the City has gotten alot smaller since the last reorganization. And there is no doubt that some members of City Council are more functional than others. The resulting shakeup from consolidation and downsizing would be good for the city — certainly alot better than the fairly dysfunctional groove the Council is in now. Two of the sponsors of this resolution — Trippi Congo and Justin Wright have been trying to distinguish themselves as *change* agents, agitating for changes and accountability from the Administration (not very effectively). I don’t quite understand how
can represent yourself as a change agent for anything if you aren’t willing to re-evaluate your own organization. Wright and Congo have been showily voting “present” for some Council items — ostensibly to make the point that they want some changes and responsiveness from the Administration. Not that this impresses the Administration any, and it would surprise me if their constituents thought this was useful. But you can’t ask for more accountability and more constituent focus if you aren’t willing to get that done in your own house.
Co-sponsors — Griffiths, Brown, Potter, and Shabazz aren’t much of a surprise in rushing to shield themselves from any possible change or challenges. As a group, they haven’t been especially effective in holding the Administration accountable, and apparently they won’t be doing that for City Council, either. But certainly there will be plenty of City taxpayers who will remind these folks that they weren’t particularly interested in contributing to a solution that not only would help patch the budget hole, but might be a more efficient governing model. Heaven knows they certainly need it.
One of the other things that I would endorse for the Wilmington City Council would be cutting back their meeting schedule to once per month, maybe increasing the number of meetings in Budget season. There is unlikely much in terms of savings from that, but may impose better order on the way the Council operates. Probably not, but one can hope.
Tags: Wilmington
Update – there were people who commented during the Public Comments period against the reduction in Council, Potters and Griffiths strong armed the resolution through without letting Bud speak to his presentation. Pretty graceless and very telling. Apparently these folks are so spooked by the idea of a smaller council and having to actually have to do abit more work (and get out of their own comfort zones) that they couldn’t possibly let a contrary idea have any daylight.
Bud got his statement in and he was clearly and rightfully mad. There was a concensus that Council should look at reductions and apparently he was working pretty hard at it which seems to have spooked these folks.
So tonite will not be recorded as one of City Council’s finest moments. Because while Bud Freel’s request to make his statement when he did may have been against the rules, it was completely graceless for an issue so important.
Bud noted that he had spent considerable time talking with each Councilmenber about this and he was spending that time because Councilmembers indicated a willingness to deal with this issue. He understood that a change in council size would require action from Dover, so he went there to talk about strategies for getting this done. If there is something that you want from the GA, you don’t just present them with a wish list — your request needs to be specifically structured to get the outcome you want.
I can’t tell if they genuinely don’t get it or are just invoking politics here, but there are Councilmembers who used Bud’s exploratory meeting in Dover as a signal that he was going behind their backs to just get the reduction done. But some of this comes from members who — when they were going through the Stephanie Bolden replacement saga — who suggested that perhaps Council could be smaller and not replacing Bolden might be a step to that. Re-construing Bud’s visit to Dover as going behind their backs was especially despicable.
Bud left after he made his statement and I don’t much blame him. But Wilmingtonians who are reading this should know this key thing — I watched the Wilmington City Council work *harder* at insulating themselves from the kind of pain they are getting ready to vote to impose on the rest of the city than they ever put into getting Community Policing for the city.
I’ve never been able to figure out what the correct ratio is for the number of elected officials per the number of citizens. But I am quite skeptical about those who act and speak as though that ratio is transparently obvious. Interestingly, they never seem to provide a criteria for their ratio. In this case, the criterion seems to be solely monatary, which only raises the question why the number of councilpersons should merely be cut back to nine. Why not seven? If effective representation is to be adudged simply on a savings standard, just think of the savings that would be gained by seven councilpersons instead of nine. Alternately, we could just assume that the mechanics of representative democracy has costs and, come what may, we must always make provision to pay for them.
Excellent blogging, Cassandra. Thanks for reporting on this.
Thanks, P.
But I am quite skeptical about those who act and speak as though that ratio is transparently obvious. Interestingly, they never seem to provide a criteria for their ratio.
I’m not sure that anyone is assuming that there is anything transparently obvious, except that there are quite a few people in Wilmington who have been questioning the size of the City Council for a few years now. And these folks — much like me — are making this judgment in terms of value and overall effectiveness in return for the overhead. There isn’t a ration in the world that will make any difference if the people you represent don’t think that you are adding much value to the process.
This is largely the Council’s problem — Community Policing is a hot button and this Council has been singularly unable to push this issue. There are a couple of Council folks who work hard at this, but as a body they haven’t been able to do it. In addition, they’ve been leading with their helplessness with the Baker Administration for a long time. An odd claim for a co-equal branch of government. If they are going to exist as a rubber stamp for the Administration, why do we need so many of them?
It isn’t exactly unreasonable for people to re-evaluate the value of the level of representation that they currently have. If we’re being asked to live with fewer police and less other government services, I can’t see why the City Council ought to be immune.