Charter Review And You
I know this might be hard to sit through but pay attention just for a minute, it will all be over soon. (:
As a city, Portland has a City Charter which defines our system of government as a Commission style of government. There is another (and more common for larger cities) system of city government, the “Strong Mayor” form. Portland was defined as a “Commission” form of government. Here’s how it’s set up. Well recently we had it reviewed, and if changes are made to the charter it could redefine our city government at the most fundamental of levels. According to B!x, it is one of the most important decisions the City’s residents can face.
Here’s the deal: the Charter Review Commission (who has a blog) suggests revising the current government body we have; we’d replace it with a “strong mayor” system. We’re one of the last “commission” style governments in a large city in the US, so this could be viewed as an update to our system. It is a VERY big deal even if you don’t know it yet; just go Google it and see how much discussion Strong Mayor and Charter Reform have gotten all over the country.
The One True B!x, of Portland Communique fame (among other things) has put (back) up his Portland’s Future Charter blog about the Charter Review. He has Chris Smith of Portland Transport and (former City Council Candidate) Amanda Fritz on the list of contributors, and it’s a pretty interesting read.
Another good place for Charter Review news has been Blogtown PDX, with Scott Moore of the Merc making some suggestions of his own, (which got a reply from Randy Leonard). They do a decent job covering all manner of city government, so there’s a decent amount of stuff there about the Charter Review situation.
Currently the situation is this: Sam wants to send this to the ballot in May. So? Well, it’s an off year election, for one thing-so putting this fundamental redesign on the ballot in a few months means that instead of “letting the people decide” on charter reform, it will really be “a few people who never miss an election and not really a representative sample of people in Portland at all” who decide the fate of the City. Here’s voter turnout historically to give you some idea of what kind of numbers we’re talking about. Randy Leonard doesn’t think it’s so hot either.
Don’t worry if you have gotten this far and been confused. It’s even giving Amanda herself a headache! But it is definitely something to be aware of, and I’ll follow it for the spectacle if nothing else. We’re on the verge of redesigning an entire government, and it isn’t like you can just start over if it doesn’t come out how you want it to.
Related posts:
And the local Metroblogging reader community lets out with a collective yawn.
Ya know, I’ve typed charter amendment initiatives. It’s a difficult subject to understand, much less to understand why it’s important.
What might be helpful to at least some people is to explain how things would be different. Then the people in favor could add their arguments about how the differences are better, and the people opposed could argue about how they’d be worse.
With an emphasis, IMHO, on the pro-reform people having to make their case. The burden of proof should be on those seeking change, and they’ve done a piss-poor job so far of meeting it.