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Katy Grimes: Strong mayor might work; this plan won't

Posted by Katy Grimes on Friday, September 25, 2009 6:20:15 PM
my column in The Sacramento Bee today:
 
The current strong-mayor proposal presented by Mayor Kevin Johnson and Sacramentans for Accountability has been thoroughly reviewed by the Charter Review Commission, created and appointed by the City Council. During its research, the commission reviewed 10 strong-mayor cities and interviewed many of the mayors and/or city council members of those cities, as well as researched and compared the city systems where the systems work and transitioned well.

Unfortunately, the strong-mayor proposal on the table does not resemble any of the systems that have worked … except perhaps, Chicago.

Emulating Chicago-style politics, replete with the Daley family monarchy, is hopefully not what Johnson had in mind when he supported the strong-mayor concept. However, one need not look much further than his ambitious political advisers, supporters and "Kitchen Cabinet" members for complicity. Developers and hopeful city contractors will have to cater only to the mayor, not all nine council members. Johnson's friends, groupies, consultants and advisers looking for future appointments will have plenty of jobs to consider – Chicago-style.

According to Johnson's strong-mayor proposal, the mayor would have the power to hire and fire the city manager, city treasurer, city clerk, city attorney and many layers of subordinate staff – up to 800 city employees.

Under this scenario, the City Council would be powerless to stop the removal of city employees.

The strong-mayor proposal would give the mayor veto power over council decisions.

The strong-mayor proposal would give the mayor the ability to introduce a budget that would automatically become law unless the City Council voids it in a specified period of time.

The lack of an ethics commission or term limits is troublesome as well. Claiming that voters can vote a bad mayor out of office is disingenuous, with the multiple layers of mayor- appointed positions and staff.

Johnson's strong-mayor proposal lacks key ingredients pertinent to a healthy, constitutional checks-and-balances mayoral system. Specific areas of concern include:

• The immediate transition time after the election is unrealistic and potentially dangerous. The successful strong-mayor cities that were researched took, at minimum, one year to transition.

• Other cities have found that an ethics committee was needed to monitor and review strong-mayor governments for areas of conflicts of interest with elected officials, appointees and lobbyists. These committees also investigate complaints regarding possible ethics violations and campaign financing abuses.

• Johnson's strong-mayor proposal allows for the mayor to appoint city charter officers (city attorney, city manager, city treasurer, city clerk) and department heads. The mayor will control who works for the city, and has hiring and firing power over most of the city staff. This is acceptable in private business, but an open and transparent government should not be run CEO-style, as it begs for pay-to-play practices.

• In City Attorney Eileen Teichert's analysis of Johnson's proposal, she concluded that the proposed measure creates an imbalance of power among the city's elected officials, lacks vital checks and balances, and "blurs the lines of authority and accountability" adopted by other strong-mayor cities. She is correct.

• Term limits should only be a last resort, if all other checks and balances are not in place. Term limits are at least one way to somewhat balance an all-powerful executive mayor.

Much of the criticism heaped on Johnson for his strong-mayor proposal has been that his proposal is all about him. Critics accused him of being too impatient to even learn how to be mayor, when he introduced the proposal before he'd even warmed his office chair. Johnson has made no secret of the fact that as a voting council member, minutiae is not where he envisions spending his time and talents. Johnson is less of a detail guy and more of a big-picture, rainmaker style of mayor – the exact opposite of former Mayor Heather Fargo, who was known for her administrative acumen.

Somewhere in the middle lies the answer for Sacramento. Business as usual is not acceptable or realistic. While Sacramento has grown up and out, it still seems to be run using a town-council, neighborhood-activist mentality. Sacramento has a difficult time attracting big businesses, and officials still complain about not having a major-league arena.

Sacramento sits on two undeveloped rivers and has two railyards that have remained blighted, polluted, vacant and undeveloped for decades. Many people believe that the current City Council wastes precious time on the little things, while progress on the big-picture issues and long-term planning continues to elude Sacramento.

Sacramento needs a strong mayor with accountability, and Kevin Johnson may be the right person for the job. However, Sacramento will be saddled with a Chicago Daley machine style of city government if the one-sided strong-mayor proposal on the table is passed.
 
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Should Sacramento Residents Have The Right To Vote on Strong Mayor?

Posted by Katy Grimes on Wednesday, August 05, 2009 4:41:53 PM

Mayor Kevin Johnson is fighting the Sacramento City Council on when Sacramento residents will be able to vote for the Strong Mayor Proposal.

The County Registrar has confirmed that the Strong Mayor and Budget Analyst initiatives submitted to the City of Sacramento in June both have more than enough valid signatures to be placed on the ballot.
 
http://www.sacramentocitizen.com/index.cfm
 
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Sacramento City Council - Lost Democracy

Posted by Katy Grimes on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 2:44:58 AM
Tonight the Sacramento City Council demonstrated that they are completely unfamiliar with the American tradition of the Democratic process. They also demonstrated that they are lockstep with the local unions - or not man enough to deal with them. It was also apparent that they had pre-arranged the vote ahead of the meeting.  

Tonight's meeting was an enormous waste of everyone's time - especially the folks who took the time out of their usual schedules and don't get paid to sit at City Council meetings listening to the self-congratulating and drivel coming from city employees to one-another, on what a great job they've all done with the budget. 

The biggest waste of time was when mayor Johnson thanked everyone present who had spoken out about the budget issues, and told them that their suggestions could be used next budget year if not used this year. He tipped his hat, gave a wink-wink to the local unions present, and voted quickly to pass the budget.

The union-bloated budget cuts all of the little guys who work for the parks department who already don't make enough to live on, cuts necessary park maintenance including public park restrooms, cuts some programs for kids, closes swimming pools and the like. 

Are you seeing a theme here? 

The City wussies allowed local union bosses to determine who would be cut from the budget for the city, so as not to upset their higher-up members. No mention of the lower paid employees that will be sacrificed so that the older, highly paid, management city employees can keep their pay raises . No mention of the regional public parks that are already being ignored by maintenance workers (who are out looking for jobs after receiving lay-off notices), and no mention of the bathrooms that will be closed in said parks, that service park visitors, picnic groups, family reunions, grad parties, car clubs, volleyball tournaments, baseball, soccer, football teams,  runners, walkers, stroller-pushing moms, fishermen, bird watchers, golfers, bicyclists, and passers by making a quick pit stop.

The Sacramento City council demonstrated that they are so removed from the reality of city life and live in an insulated bubble of their own choosing, when they conducted little scripted discussions tonight with each other and members of City staff. 

Council member Rob Fong in his carefully scripted exchange with Parks and Rec department Director Jim Combs,  fooled no one with the bad acting. Between Fong's soft-ball questions and Combs' ambiguous, disingenuous answers, it felt like an episode of CSPAN. Lauren Hammond's "heartfelt" speech lacked... heart. Steve Cohn, in his meandering soliloquy to the residents, left the folks looking around awkwardly, asking each other, "what is he talking about?" And Sandy Sheedy said nothing of substance, as usual.

However, when Mayor Johnson wrapped up the budget discussion with his insincere thanks and half-hearted comment about the usefulness of the proposals in next year's budget (maybe), members in the audience knew wed been had. Then entire evening was an exercise in futility. THe City Council could have been replaced tonight with large puppets, maneuvered by Local 39 and the Fire Fighters Union.

Sacramento is operating undemocratically. The elected officials are not listening to the voting citizens and instead, putting all of their eggs in the unions basket. This is non representative of the democratic process in a Representative Republic. 

If I was a City Council member right now, I'd be looking for another job. The wrath coming from the residents is not going to be pretty... so I have heard.

more to come...
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Sacramento City Council Performance

Posted by Katy Grimes on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 1:37:17 PM
Last night as I sat in the audience watching the Sacramento City Council perform, I felt that I'd been ripped-off. The performance was bush-league, and not even worthy of  Middle-school production.
 
For several hours, they demonstrated how ill-prepared most of them are. They demonstrated that they prefer to let "staff" make decisions for them (Lauren Hammond). Council members demonstrated that they are not engaged at all in the issues (Rob Fong). They demonstrated that they are beholden to local union 39 (Ray Tretheway). Tretheway even demonstrated that he is oblivious to the conflict of interest he has as Executive Director of the Sacramento Tree Foundation, as he talked down to a City planner about the "tree canopy" and "Urban forest" he thought should be included in the updated Urban City design plan for downtown. As I sat there trying to take notes while Tretheway spoke, I found the task nearly impossible; he never completes a sentence of thought.
 
Councilman Kevin McCarty, Cohn  and Sandy Sheedy made sense a couple of times - McCarty when he pressed the City Finance Director for information about whether or not the City was laying off more line workers and saving management jobs and salaries - she could not answer. Sheedy made snese when she refused to vote for an intent motion for the budget as proposed.  All of the other council members voted to pass it. Cohn pressed city staff on a bogus contract.
 
One item of interest on the agenda was the Old Sacramento Tour Boat Interim Lease Agreement. A member of the audience and his attorney addressed the Council, asking why the bid process had not been open as they (Commodore Events) would have bid on it and probably won the bid instead of mega-tour boat company, Hornblower (who operates Alcatraz and Ellis Island tour boats). It was abundantly clear that there was only the one "bid" and the process had been done hurridly in order to award it to Hornblower, but not just the "interim" contract. Apparently Hornblower Company was going to be allowed to sign a long-term contract courtest of staff's recommendations - "5-10 years" as the city staff employee said sheepishly. She became defensive when Councilman Cohn asked her instead to consider a 2-year contract as the RFP for the process was already 5 years old. When  The Mayor asked the City Manager to step outside and meet with city staff and the disgruntled party to see if they coudl come to a compromise.
 
The groups eventually came back in and the calendar item was resumed, and promptly passed a unanimous vote of council. I wonder what went on in the back room to appease the attorney and his client...
 
Councilwoman Hammond on several occasions, challenged her colleagues on their questioning of city staff procedures saying "we already proved that when we don't let staff do their jobs, we are wrong." She clearly likes to have staff do her job for her as well. If the City council is not challenging city staff procedures, recommendations and policy, who will? The City Manager? I don't think so.
 
Councilman Rob Fong never once participated in the meeting, and he looked like a clown, dressed in a neon tie and even brighter shirt. Four audience members spoke about the need to maintain Land Park, and Fong never even acknowledged their presence, and never uttered a word. His lack of engagement in his own neighborhood is shameless.
 
Councilwoman Bonnie Pannell was also uncharacteristically quiet. 
 
The bulk of the audience members were present to argue budget cuts in park maintenance, speaking eloquently to a future of closed park bathrooms, weeds and uncut grass, garbage problems, crime, public urination, and a myriad of other problems that will arise if parks are allowed to degrade. Additionally, one speaker presented seven different options for cuts and budget reforms, for which both McCarty and the Mayor thanked the group, pointing out that they never recieve alternate proposals when city residents show up to challenge budget cuts. www.rescuesacramentoparks.blogspot.com
 
The Sacramento City Council is woefully inadequate on financial and business issues. They only seem to perk up when social programs are the issue. There are moments when several of the members seem to grasp the issue - Cohn with the tour boat issue, McCarty with the budget issue, Sheedy refusing to vote on the budget without more information - but mostly they sit back and allow the City Manager, City Attorney and various City staffers do the work for them, without ever verifying issues themselves, or even being prepared ahead with pertinent questions.
 
The Mayor is clearly only one voice, one vote, on the Council. After witnessing several council meetings lately, more than ever, Sacramento needs to change the City Charter and make the Mayor the CEO of the City. Last night's meeting would have gone very differently had a CEO been in charge. And we desperately need to elect council members who understand and are even vaguely familiar with finance and business.
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