Good Government

If the citizens do not have full trust in their government, nothing else matters. While I believe most of our residents have a good opinion of our city government, there is a growing distrust for all levels of government.

As a City, we do better than most, but there is still a lot that we can do better.

We must follow our Charter.

Council had not followed the Charter with respect to hiring of new employees. The Charter said that employees under the supervision of the city manager should be hired and managed by the city manager. That makes a lot of sense because the city manager can fill openings in a more timely manner and has better knowledge of the skills necessary for these positions than Council. Until I submitted a resolution forcing the issue, Council was still voting to approve all new hires because “that’s the way it has always been done.”

When there was an opening following a resignation on Council this past year, the Charter is pretty clear that “City Council shall appoint a qualified, registered city elector within sixty (60) days from the date the vacancy was created.” The Council Rules have created a process that is not consistent with the Charter and is likely to create a violation of the Charter’s timeliness. In fact, it took more than 90 days before the vacancy was seated. The current mayor pointed out that there “are no Charter police,” implying that there was no real need to strictly follow the terms of the Charter.

We need to adopt and follow an email policy.

Currently, there is no policy concerning email use for official City business. There is no prohibition against Council members or the current mayor using their personal or work emails instead of City-issued emails. This can be used as a technique to shield public business from public view.

We need to be as transparent as possible with the public.

I am happy to share that City staff already does good job of sharing information with email updates, newsletters, and other outreach. With the challenges facing local media, however, we need to do even more. It is still common, however, to hear residents say they didn’t know something was happening. We should become more proactive at pushing information out through places like The Sun Times News.

I am also happy that we have finally started broadcasting and sharing recordings of our meetings, even if it took a global pandemic for that to happen. We must continue to keep doing this so our residents can see what is going on even if they are unable to attend meetings.

We must provide opportunities for our community to fully participate in the decision making process.

Although we offer many opportunities to speak at public meetings, this can make it a challenge for those who have children, work nights, or have other obligations during these hours.

I will call for the development of a public participation plan. This plan will identify opportunities and processes for the City to gather input from and involve all members of the community (that want to participate).

We must ensure our committees and boards are full and representative.

There are currently openings on a half-dozen boards or committees. This can make it difficult for them to meet if somebody is away on vacation or has to recuse themselves due to a conflict of interest, which means the business is delayed for another month.

Most board or committee positions are nominated by the mayor and confirmed by Council. If elected your mayor, I will strive to conduct interviews for open positions with another member of Council.

If elected your mayor, I will strive to have all of our boards and committees full within 6 months.

I will observe a mayoral term limit.

I believe it is in the best interest of the community, whether it is a city, state, or country, for the top elected official to have a limited time in that position. It reduces the amount of influence that individual can accumulate. It provides fresh perspectives and energy. It just feels right.

If elected your mayor, I will not run for more than two terms. Two terms were good enough for George Washington, it’ll be good enough for me.