OPINION: Power Grab – Measure CC Takes Authority from Elected Officials
Keep the current reporting structure of Piedmont’s City Charter.
Measure CC is a power grab and proponents of CC completely misstate the way City Hall is run as justification.
Measure CC is completely ineffective at telling voters what it will do.
First, as written, Measure CC is completely ineffective at telling voters what it will do. It should have read: “Shall the measure to amend the City Charter to reassign authority to terminate City department heads from City Council to the City Administrator be adopted”. Same word count. Such text would be much more informative to the voters and the fact that Measure CC is drafted so poorly should tell you something.
Measure CC reassigns important oversight authority from Council to the City Administrator with no justification on the record.
Second, from the Mayor in a recent news account: “[The Charter] contains language that suggests that the City Council is responsible for managing and directing the work of City officers. The Piedmont City Attorney strongly recommended that this ambiguity be clarified…” Read that carefully – “suggests” and “ambiguity” – if true then simply clarify the Charter language and keep the current reporting structure in place. Instead Measure CC reassigns important oversight authority from Council to the City Administrator with no justification on the record.
Grab or giveaway, Measure CC is bad for Piedmont and reduces the authority of our elected officials. Coupled with Measure BB (fewer meetings, less voter choice), these measures weaken good governance in Piedmont and should be rejected by the voters.
Garrett Keating, Former Piedmont City Council Member
While I haven’t learned of any compelling necessity for CC, most commenters are making it sound like it’s a disaster. From my 41 year career in local government, the City Manager frequently is responsible for hiring and firing of department heads and staff. This practice works fine.
Michael Henn’s statement that “the practice works fine” in other cities may be true, but it begs the bigger question of why Measure CC is necessary in Piedmont. Nobody has reported a problem with the current structure, as Mike correctly states, nor has anyone provided a compelling reason to change our current structure, so why would we do this? It’s unnecessary and risks unforeseen consequences. It doesn’t matter if you call Measure CC a power grab or a giveaway because either way, the City Council will have less power and less transparency. Vote No on Measure CC.
No compelling reason has been offered for CC. The only reason given is that the City Attorney claims the Charter language is “ambiguous”, suggesting that City Council is responsible for managing and directing. That is debatable and in any event, the obvious solution is to simply clarify the language. Instead, CC seeks to change the management structure from that of City Administrator to City Manager. City Managers may be effective for other larger cities but absent a showing of a problem with the current structure in Piedmont, why change it? The ability to hire/fire and give direction to Department Heads establishes direct accountability of these departments to Council and may explain the high level of service Piedmonters receive.
It is easy to give power away and very difficult to get it back. Why take away the power to fire an employee from yourselves and your elected city council members and give that power to one unelected person, making that person the most feared and powerful person in Piedmont.
Recently a employee was making overly familiar advances to students and when it appeared that he was not going to be fired, Piedmonters packed the next school board meeting, wisely held twice a month like clockwork, and demanded he be removed. We need to know that we never need wait more than 2 weeks to address matters of importance and recalibrate when necessary. If city council members do not have enough time to do this as it is currently done and has been done for many, many years with proven effectiveness, they should leave the work to candidates willing to do it.. me, for instance.
Sunny Bostrom~Fleming
Candidate for City Council