Taken to the Woodshed

Two posts ago I wrote about the attitudes of several members of the Charter Study Committee, of which I'm a member. I wasn't particulary charitable, but then, if you can't be passionate about what you do, you shouldn't be doing it.

At today's meeting two of those members voiced their displeasure at what I wrote, in fact, they voiced displeasure that I dared write anything. One member claimed it was contrary to the ground rules that all the Committee members agreed to when we started. Happily, a copy of those rules was produced, and nowhere did it say we couldn't write about our experiences. Now, dear reader, do you think that I didn't know that? Do you also think I, a writer, would have continued to serve on a body that stifled my writing?

Back to Wednesday's meeting.

Since nobody was named as the culprit I immediately 'fessed up, pointing out that my First Amendment rights had not been cancelled, and that any member of the Committee could avail themselves of those selfsame rights and write their own blog. I guess that would be called a counterblog. And, no, I didn't tell them they could simply make a comment to this blog to avail themselves of the same forum I have.

That embroglio ended with the hope that 'we can put this behind us.' Unsaid was the hope that these writings would stop.

Fat chance.

As for the meat of the meeting: the Establishment won.

At issue was whether it should take a supermajority (4/5 vote) to hire and fire a City Manager. My argument was that such a setup gave inordinate power to the minority and that a simple majority was the way we do things here in America. Nobody was buying that argument, so I conceded, gracefully as always.

But, we agreed that the Police Chief, Fire Chief and City Clerk would all be Charter Officers, hired and fired by City Council with a simple majority vote.

Of course, all of this may well be moot.

Whatever the Charter Study Committee does has to be approved by the sitting members of City Council, then submitted to the voters. Council can easily gut what we've produced and the voters can easily toss what remains.

Here's the scariest fact: The city has about 12,000 residents. Of that number about 7,000 are registered to vote, and of that number about 700 turn out on election day. Is it any wonder that citizens get the government they deserve?

Arjay