1999-06-23 Charter Commission Minutes

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Page 10 of 12 that’s all. TURNER: Well, I think that rumor’s going around that’s a "what if" scenario that’s being considered and all I hear is universal opposition to that. When you work it backwards, the requirements, that isn’t enough time to have a democratic process. So I urge you to not even consider that. A couple of people have raised a good question of when do things take effect. Do we elect a Mayor and they’re only in office for a second and then they are out of office because we have a new process. I think it’s pretty easy to (1) make these decisions in the best interest of the community and a democratic process and then (2) you can specify in the law that you’re passing, when they will take effect. You could say that the Mayor will cease to exist in the year 2002 or 2004 or whatever you choose, and you’re bright folks and I think you can do a better job than we did ten years ago and have the timing blow up in their face and suddenly you got elected and your term was different and you didn’t even know it. So if you think it through and you’re raising the right questions, I think we can do a good job but an election before November 2000 which is only sixteen, seventeen months away, is just ludicrous. If you have any opinion one way or the other about cave people, remember that they’re all CAVERs, that’s Citizens Against Virtually Every Ripoff and that would be just too fast of a process. I urge you strongly to don’t even think about that. So there are several questions I’ve heard already tonight about Council Manager, process, partisan/nonpartisan, length of Council terms. I think those are all good things we shouldn’t be deciding up-front but asking a lot of questions about and I applaud the process that you’ve outlined. In answer to Kevin’s question about having a five-ninth’s majority select a Council Manager or a City Manager, it seems to me simple enough to have a super majority that’s appropriate. I don’t know if that’s 6 or 7 but I’m thinking more and more that our society, our American democracy, question mark, really is a tyranny of the majority. We don’t want to do things with a 51% majority, we want to set up a system that forces us to spend enough time to come to a consensus that we agree and then we work together and get something done. And anything you can do as you’re considering all these proposals that will work towards that end, I think, is going to help the community and if it’s well thought out and aimed at forming consensus and problem solving instead of maintaining power control with the barest of majority or minority, then maybe this bundle will be easier to pass. And I know last time it seems like there were a couple loaded things that went through and something wasn’t supposed to get approved and it did and then something else, you know. The community’s awake now and I don’t think there’s a chance anymore to slip anything in and I know there are pressures from different quarters to achieve different objectives and I think it’s time to make this a truly open citizen process for citizen government. Thank you. RAY: Any questions? Yes, Marni. HERKES: Jeff, several of your comments were what we do. We will not be doing anything but drafting up proposals. It will be an elected process. It will be voting. We won’t do anything. You will do it. You, the voters, will do it and so every time somebody comes up and says what we do, we’re just here to kind of collect testimony and to come out with some kinds of consensus as to the kinds of things that we’re hearing and that’s why we’re asking a lot of questions is so that we can kind of delve into what you’re really thinking so that we can start to do that process. TURNER: Right and I appreciate that and the time you’re all putting in however, you’re going to write legislation that we get an up or down vote and we don’t get to modify it or amend it and that’s what this process is for is - HERKES: That’s what you’re doing tonight. file://\\coh01\cohweb\council\charter_commission\minutes\minutes 6-23-99.html7/1/2011