Are Democrats Hurting Wilmington?

That is the question posed by John Sweeney in the NJ Opinion pages today. There’s a fair amount of fluff in this piece, and does a thing I mostly hate from newspaper opinion pages — ask a bunch of questions that its news division is not in the business of helping to answer for its readers. Some of those questions are misdirected — schools are under the jurisdiction of school boards and the state, the city has little influence over how they operate or serve city kids, for instance. And lumping in all Democratically run cities with Wilmington’s story is equally misguided. We can start with the NJ’s own comparison of Providence, RI starts to show how inappropriate this is. A city that is mostly Democratic and is clearly back on a upswing — a city that still has real issues, but a city that the NJ compared to Wilmington in terms of effectiveness in addressing violence. Democratic-run places like Baltimore and Philadelphia also present very different stories — cities that still have more than their fair share of issues, but cities working at the kind of development and change that starts to address those problems. Interestingly, Baltimore has reasonable support from the MD GA, and Philadelphia does not from the PA GA (GOP controlled). But I don’t think that the city’s problem is just about Democrats — I think it is mainly uninspired (and oft-times lazy) governing.

So let’s take a look at a few items from Sweeney’s piece:

A second – and only slightly more complicated – answer is that the Republicans of late have shown little interest in cities and their problems.

Really this needs a good look at why the LOCAL GOP has given up on Wilmington. Yes, we know that the GOP has little interest in cities, which is strange since one of their own is widely credited with creating a pretty good blueprint for city transformation. And I still think that the local GOP missed a real opportunity the last round of city elections — when the Mayoral race as well as a few city council seats were ready for better competition. That speaks to the current structural weakness of the current GOP, but also speaks to the lack of strategic thinking there. And there is only one Republican on City Council because the law requires one member of the minority party to be on Council. Not because of any campaigning or positioning effectiveness by the GOP.

Turnout is lower and the difference between candidates is more likely to be personality driven. Personal connections play a bigger role than differences on issues. Incumbents rarely have to break a sweat campaigning. More to the point, the conventional wisdom usually goes unchallenged.

Personality isn’t so much of an issue as personal connections. But then, this is the story of Delaware state politics, right? It is *all* about retail politics here, so I don’t get why personal connections could be an issue. But one thing that counts as a *personal connection * is reputation as a problem solver. There are a handful of City Council people who are at the top of the call list when folks have an issue and there is a larger group that you already know not to bother. Or to avoid for the hard stuff. And while some incumbents don’t work too hard for re-election, I’ll point out that Bud Freel routinely knocked on every voting D door throughout the city when he was campaigning for At Large Councilman. So I don’t get dissing the personal connection when the politics of the entire state runs this way. But I will agree that issues are often given short shrift, in favor of sound bite BS that never gets a wider examination. I’ll point to the rhetoric and promises made about public safety as one big example. You can hear some of the CW challenged especially in campaigns, but you won’t see much coverage of that in the paper of record. And nor are they especially useful in pushing that conversation, either. You can also hear some of the CW challenged in communities who are working at making larger change — but when was the last time you read about the work in progress of the West Side Grows group?

Worse, this party loyalty shown by the voters has no payoff at their end.

Pointing out that GW Bush had no city policy, either. And I think that much of Bill Clinton’s city policy was about increasing community policing. At the national level, pulling back from supporting cities AND states is a feature, not a bug of the kind of austerity that has been pushed as fiscal responsibility. And I think you’d want to take a good look around someplace like West Center City to see some of the longer term effects of George Romney and Richard Nixon’s vouchers and block grants programs.

More locally, though, the disconnect between voters and outcomes in the city can be located precisely at the City Democratic City Committee’s feet. The city party is not at the forefront of advocating for either local platform or policy or vision for this city. I’ve often noted that Wilmington is one of the least progressive entirely blue city I’ve ever been in. More progressive politics (or at least one that pushed for a better existance for the city) can’t find purchace with this committee that is incredibly inward looking. People get elected on their own promises (and their effectiveness in getting out their own voters) and voters are on their own to work out promises kept and those that are not. If the Mayor is fulfilling his or her promises, that largely redounds to the benefit of the City Council — it doesn’t matter that they may or may not have done anything to advance that agenda. And when the Mayor isn’t doing especially well, the City Council is free to point fingers. There’s little to rally around, since most of the City Council gets by on Constituent Service — not on ideas or vision or even implemented legislation. The Culture of Governing in the city is very weak, City Council knows that and they get by on doing the things that get them visibility. Because in this current climate, visibility on constituent service means you never have to do any of the heavy lifting to move the city forward. There are exceptions to this, of course — Bud Freel and Loretta Walsh being at the top of the exception list.

As multiple people often explain to me, the City Council is constitutionally fairly weak. But they are still the people who approve the expenditures of funds and I think they could do alot better at wielding that bit of leverage to take up larger issues. I also think that the City Council could take the focus off of twice monthly meetings and re-focus energy on more productive Committee Meetings and Committee communications. Too often there are questions and debates at regular Council meetings that would have been avoided if the Councilperson came to the floor understanding what work has been done. A once-per-moth City Council meeting with perhaps two meetings of each Committee (once to deal with the agenda items and another to approve the briefing to Council) might get work done and allow for other initiatives. But in this, Sweeney is right that this is a group invested in the status quo — they wouldn’t even consider reducing the size of council as a way of helping to deal with a budget shortfall. Because some of them might lose their extra paychecks and pensions.

Most voters – in the city or outside – do not follow local politics. They go into the voting booth better informed about national issues than local ones.

Wonder if the newspaper of record is implicated in this sorry state of affairs? While they are touting more local information today, I wonder if that is going to mean more coverage of local political issues and the operation of the local government. On the other hand, I get that coverage of the local ZBA hearing isn’t going to sell more papers. But there is a genuine gap of information for local voters and it is strange for the local provider of local information to complain that the locals aren’t better informed.

Why not forget party registration and allow everyone to vote in an open primary. Send the top two vote getters to the November general election.

Ugh, this idea again. This is the idea that Independent Voters Will Save Us. They won’t. There just are not enough Independent voters that you can count on to come out and vote to have a long term impact. Certainly not in Wilmington and certainly not until the Culture of Governing changes enough to incentivize better quality candidates to get into these races. What might actually help would be Instant Runoff Voting (or it is also called Ranked Choice Voting). IRV ensures that offices are won with a majority of voters (not just a plurality) and should force most candidates to ask for votes outside of their comfort zone. Or we kill two birds with one stone — reduce the number of Councilmanic Districts to 4, and have 5 seats At Large — ones that are voted on by Open Party lists and then each party is assigned seats in the At Large pool proportional to the percentage of votes they captured. A party would have to get more than 5% of the vote to qualify for a seat.

Wilmington has plenty of interesting Democrats who could be very effective in government. Wilmington’s problem is that those Democrats don’t get heard — mainly because there is little incentive for them to be a part of the current dysfunction. Wilmington’s leadership — at mostly all levels — is complicit in institutionalizing the dysfunction. Wilmington also has a tough time promoting its competent people. Kevin Kelley lost the Mayoral race, and the City Council really could use his voice right now. But you can see the overarching problem in who defended Velda Potter in her obvious conflict-of-interest issues. Too many did not think that the City’s Conflict of Interest policy was their priority, but coming to Velda’s defense was. Taxpayers were the furthest thing from the defenders minds. Then go beyond that — again I’ll point out that this city has plenty of extremely competent people working on making their communities better. Most of those stories never get heard and that work often goes unsung. They are your potential leadership and it would be useful to start shining a light on these people — as well as shining a better light on where the current government isn’t delivering for the city’s residents.