Aaah, Some Sense Here

The Zephyrhills City Council faced a difficult choice: cherry pick a juicy tidbit from the Charter Revision Committee's offerings, or do the right thing.

It took some doing and some cogitating, but eventually Clyde Bracknell, the longest-serving councilperson did the right thing.

We speak of the reform that would have restructured council and the terms of office of the councilpersons.

The intent of the Revision Committee was to present the voters with a package that would have reduced Council by one seat; given the mayor a real seat and a real vote, and increased the terms by a year. It was feared that when the package went to Council the councilpersons would simply cherry-pick by submitting the longer terms (3 years instead of 2) to the voters and let the rest of the package die.

That's exactly what they did. Voting your own self interest is an easy thing to do.

Then the flack began.

Councilperson Gina King got together her own set of Citizen Initiatives, but since council had dragged its feet for so long she only had two weeks to get the requisite signatures. To no one's suprise the test wasn't met.

Then, Monday night, Bracknell moved to strike the increased terms. His motion passed. So, councilmemebers will continue to serve two year terms, the voters don't get to voice their choice and the original package, which was a major restructuring of the makeup of council died a'borning.

The Mayor, Cliff McDuffie, brought up a major point. He wondered how to educate the voters on the charter revisions which will be on the ballot. To be honest, with the legalese that will be on the ballot it would take a Philadelphia lawyer to understand what it's all about. And, voters being voters, they will tend to vote against anything they don't understand.

Voter education was a concern of the study committee and the members, more or less, signed on to do some explaining, but that was before Council had its way with the proposed charter document. As a member of the Committee I was willing to support the document we produced. I'm not so sure I support the folded and spindled document Council turned out. It doesn't look a whole lot like what the Committee labored to produce.

We'll see.

Arjay Morgan