CHC 1979-07-25 - Laserfiche WebLink

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the responsibility and accountability. Under the present system, no councilman can ignore any one part of the island for he must return there ultimately and ask those people for support in his re-election. The most significant impact of this proposal is to destroy all the good work that this body has done in balancing the power and roles between the legislative and administrative branches of our county government. With 9 individual districts having 2-year terms, there is no single member of the county council that can stand up to the mayor within the first two years of the mayor' s term. While the council is faced with a mid-term election, the mayor need not run for re-election at this time and his ability to withhold spending, to transfer funds , or direct moneys into various districts will have an important effect on the actions of the county council. This power will nullify the council ' s role as an equal partner, serving as a check on the mayor in the governance of this county. A similar situation was faced by the Constitutional Convention in its last sitting in 1978. As a result, the terms of the senators were staggered so as to remove the inequity of power between the respective houses. The convention found that under the system where all senators were elected to 4-year terms, with terms all ending at the same time, the Senate could wield an inordinate amount of power in dealing with members of theHouse who must run every two years and were under greater election pressures in the interim. Because they did not have to run for re-election , the senators were able to stand fast on certain issues in disputes between the Senate and House, and to resort. . .excuse me, that should be resist. . .and to resist compromises. Under the present situation proposed , the mayor and the council could come to a dispute on: an item or program. The mayor could simply withhold the spending for this project or not seek capital improvements in certain council districts , thereby punishing a councilman for his failure to yield to the mayor' s prerogatives. Under our present situation the terms of the mayor and the council are coterminous. There is no advantage to either party because both seek re-election at the same time. These practical problems are things that must be faced by you, the Charter Commission. The Charter Commission was selected to make changes where needed in our existingcharter. You are selected for your ability to make hard decisions where hard decisions are necessary for the benefit of all the people of our county. I do not feel that it is appropriate that the Charter Commission abdicate this decision making prerogative by yielding to choices on the ballot. If alternatives are to be offered , however, I suggest the Charter Commission also put on the ballot a 9 member council which would allow 5 councilmen out of 5 individual representative districts and 4 at-large. Each councilman would have a 4-year term with the 5 initial district members running for a 2-year term and a 4-year term "commencing in 1982. This would seem to be an additional compromise -5-