News & Updates

Putting Less Puff in Puff Pieces 

The Decatur Herald & Review provides an important service to the community in reporting important topics and issues. Unfortunately, not everyone reads the paper every day. Even more unfortunate, the H&R has to cover issues while balancing being tough on issues that may offend "leaders". (More on that topic later.)

Today's Herald & Review (Sunday 2/25/2007) published two important articles. One was on the difficulty of the petition process (we have experience with that). The second article discussed the role and performance of the City Manager for Decatur ("Guiding Vision"). We think everyone should read this article and consider several key issues that the paper did not address.

"Guiding Vision" demonstrates one disadvantage of the council/manager form of government. Within the four corners of this article are several examples of misinformation propagated by the city manager without a "check and balance". This article documents the major accomplishments of the city manager with concurrence from the Mayor.

In this article the context is left out. While we understand that the newspaper has to pull punches and not offend certain constituents, it is disappointing that the elected Mayor and some on the council view issues through the prism of "the city manager can do no wrong".

In each of the accomplishments, there is another side of the story. We will tell you what it is. In most cases, there are substantial policy challenges that should be made.

We need to remind the reader that ChangeDecatur is concerned with our form of government.... not the current city manager or elected representatives. It is up to each voter to decide for themselves who is doing an adequate job. We are concerned with the lack of accountability that this system provides. We are concerned that this structure permits elected councilmen to pretend they can't directly impact city government because the city manager is the "chief executive officer". And we are concerned that this system permits the city manager to feel no direct accountability to voters.

On rare occasions when councilmen challenge the information from the city manager, they are criticized for being negative or "wanting to fire him". This is an example of the failure of this system. This process marginalizes elected representatives for doing their job. It should be the job of councilmen to learn, gather information and question the recommendations given them by the city manager. Carrying out this duty should not be ridiculed, but should be respected. The Mayor's comments in the article emphasized the role of the council, yet he rarely publicly questions the recommendations or actions of the manager. The mayor and council frequently complain about the limitations of being "part-time".

In the council/manager form of government the voters cannot reprimand or fire a city manager. The Mayor/council are each quick to point that individually they have no legal authority over city government employees. Only a majority of the council can challenge the city manager and as long as four council member are unwilling to ask tough questions, no one can affect the actions of local government. In contrast, in Springfield voters say that they government may not be perfect but at least they can fire the Mayor (who is the chief executive) if they are unhappy.

So.. "Where's The Beef"?

Well... we think it is time to start a dialogue about accountability. It is time to catalogue the short-comings of this form of government. Before we do that, we need to document the Beef most of which has been previously reported in the local media.

Those that believe that everything is being done appropriately will want to stop reading here. There are meaningful policy questions for many city government initiatives. If there was a more public and vigorous debate about many of these topics, there would be substantially different outcomes. Stay tuned to this blog and we will start a discussion on these topics. We also welcome your input or questions about city policy issues that need more scrutiny. What do you think?

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One of the posters from the H&R blog that is willing to share his comments with this blog is Mr. Steve Bean, the Macon County Clerk. His comments follow below:

I wish the change city government folks had started sooner and got the signatures to get this on the ballot. For the past thirty plus years there has been an "under-current" not happy with the way of city staffer conducts politics as usual. For a professional system, that has given out so many sweet-heart retirement deals to professionals and then rehired those same individuals for a pretty good salary (giving them another taxpayer pension) would make the late Mayor Richard Daley proud.

Corruption in alderman system? Maroa has had that system of government for years what problems of corruption has taken place there? Sweet heart deals can be found in any government system. We need to hold the city council and the mayor to high standards as our elected officeholders. We send them the wrong message with low voter turnouts. Or that the fact in this election, we seen an increase in individuals running in most areas, but, not in city and village government in the county.

All politics is local as Tip O’Neil said. We worry about 2008 Presidential election too much too early. When we should be consider with those local governments which are on the ballot on April 17,2007 who have a great impact on our daily lives (the ice storm and snow removal) and a host of local property taxes, fees, sales taxes, and user fees we pay every single day.

A council elected either "at-large" or by wards, should mirror that values and beliefs of its citizens.
The whole idea of corruption, or to the victor goes the spoils, only takes place when the citizens allow their government to do so. Elections are a way to bring about change or to continue the status quo. If the citizens of the city would vote in greater numbers than maybe the council or the city manager would respond differently [to issues in the community].

We are only as good as the government will allow.

It would really be something if the city would show the taxpayers how many jobs or how much additional revenue have come about from each TIF or Enterprise Zone. Or has this tax shift just become a tax burden for the home owner and small business person. In west side TIF today many are paying more in the TIF than to the Decatur Schools. Did the Bachrach TIF really help? What about the TIF and all the development along MLK JR Dr. north of Mound Rd? Some local and outside developers profit because their tax dollars go back to them in these TIFs. Has this really benefitted the city?

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ChangeDecatur believes this forum can be a tool to debate the merits of a change in the form of local government in Decatur, IL. We welcome differing points of view. Previous posts in this blog have noted the "raging debate" (over 55 comments) occurring on the Herald and Review Letter to the Editor blog under the post "Alderman form of government would be preferable" by Mr. Joe Roundtree dated 2/14/2007.

We would welcome any and all posters over there to come over here or give us permission to reprint their comments. (Keep it civil folks.) 

Please email us at info@ChangeDecatur.com.

Posted by SDD at 06:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An active debate has been ongoing on the Herald & Review blogs over the possible change in the form of local government (see prior posts). We would welcome any of the posters to post their comments here or email us and we will place them here. If you haven't already click on the link in our earlier post and look at some of the debate. One of the points debated has been that change to an aldermanic system would lead to increased corruption. This point is made without any context or dimension. The comments below were placed on the H&R site in response to this implication.

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Almost every major city in the United States uses an aldermanic form of representation. Most major cities in Central Illinois use an aldermanic form, or at least, a partial aldermanic form of government (some council persons are elected at large and some by district). Examples of corruption can be found in every form and type of government. A fair-minded analysis would find there is good and bad elements in all forms of government. Alleged corruption in other communities does not prove that corruption would occur in Decatur with a change in the form of government.

 

To this writer, it seems unreasonable and unfairly pessimistic to state that Decatur would experience more or worse corruption in an aldermanic system. It is also unfairly  pessimistic to think that Decatur would experience more or worse corruption than the many other cities in the U.S. that use aldermanic forms of representation.

 

Federal, state and county governments throughout the United States elect representatives by district. This is also the case for county government in Macon County. Again, it is unfair to assert that district representatives in county government are more corrupt than the city's government. Yet, this is the logical extension of points previously made.

 

In addition, some lawyers would indicate that federal law requires a system of electing representatives locally that fairly represents all.

Frequently, criticism of an aldermanic system decries the possible rivalries between aldermen that compete for resources for their individual districts. This criticism overlooks a key benefit that is belied by the criticism. Elected district representatives could be reasonably predicted to better represent each discrete districts' interests, and to a lesser extent, the interests of influential groups, companies or individuals. This tension would be constructive in many cases. Each districts' voters would appreciate this tension and increased representation.
What is implied about the predisposition of those expressing theories that elected alderman would be less effective representatives and more corrupt? The answer is for each reader to determine.

 

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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."  - Margaret Mead

"Someone doing it often interrupts the person saying it cannot be done." - Author Unknown

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business."  - T.S. Eliot

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