Last week former Alderman Verne Vance stated that Newton residents have voted more than once to reduce the size of the board and that he supported it then and still supports it now.
But Mr. Vance left out an important part of the story.
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While I have supported the act of the Charter Commission to reexamine the City Charter, I very much disagree with 1) reducing the size and 2) eliminating the ward Councilor. I feel that the size of the Council allows for diversity, allows more new-comers to enter and allows for more involvement in committees. Why in a true democratic spirit would we limit voices? Thank you
Susan Mirsky LWVN Newsletter April 2016 I am OPPOSED to any change in our current ward district system. Perhaps, we should have faith that there was great wisdom when our current Newton government was established, just as our United States democracy was founded on the principal that all men are created equal ... There are many controversial issues facing Newton citizens, especially in the areas of development, housing and zoning that will be a constant in one neighborhood or another. To put the power of decision making into the hands of so few and to remove the one ward councilor that is voted on only by their ward is to remove the democratic process. Though this proposal is purported to be more democratic, it simply cannot be. And I hope Newton residents, many of whom seem to be sadly unaware of the Charter Commission and what it is proposing, will wake up and see what is happening. Twenty-four councilors may have its challenges, but in the end it gives all citizens in our large city at least a chance of having their opinions heard. I will be voting against this when it comes to a public vote. S. Barbier Newton http://newton.wickedlocal.com/news/20170415/newton-tab-letters Ward Representation In Newton: Lots of Other Cities Have It — With Great Results
By Fred Arnstein and Pamela Geib — Neighbors for a Better Newtonvile Summary The Charter Commissioners believe that local representation is bad for Newton; that we should not have any Ward councilors. Is it true? Is ward representation bad for Newton? Newton is ranked by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) as the Number 1 Best City in the country. So Ward representation has not made Newton a terrible place. But we can dig deeper and look at the WSJ's full list of 50 Best U.S. cities. In that list, there are 43 cities comparable to Newton. It turns out that 60% of those Best cities have ward representation. So the idea that local representation is bad for a city is — that idea is simply wrong. Read More Remarks before the Charter Commission Meeting 12 April 2017
Thank you for your service. You deserve our respect and thanks. I hope I have conveyed that to all of you. This is a policy disagreement. As conveyed to you last night by email, I researched the city council compositions of the 56 municipalities in Massachusetts that use a city council form of government. Your proposals are bigger outliers than our current council (google spreadsheet). Of the 56 communities, 84% have ward-elected councilors. Of the communities smaller than Newton, 87% include ward-elected councilors; almost 9 out of 10. Santa Clara is the latest in a long line of California cities that could switch to district elections under the threat of litigation, a move advocates hope will diversify politics in a growing Silicon Valley city that’s had only one council member who isn’t white in recent years.
For more see: http://mercurynews.ca.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=592306f2b The Charter Commission has stated that they were open minded and deliberated long and hard and took public input on their decisions. Article 2 co-lead Rhanna Kidwell, in her opening remarks at the Charter Commission hearing on March 29th 2017 (minutes, full audio), indicated that might not have been the case for their decision to eliminate Ward Councilors by moving to 100% city wide voting. "I'll begin by saying that I think we had unanimous agreement on this council from day 1 that we all thought the entire city council should be elected at large. That is not something we had a lot of trouble coming to agreement on". April 13th, 2016 was DAY 1 of discussions on council composition (minutes). Commissioners agreed 100% (without need for debate) on eliminating Ward Councilors and direct-elected ward representation in their initial statements and never put them back on the table. The 9-member Charter Commission has proposed changing our city government by replacing ward-elected city council seats with four at-large seats lacking residency requirements. In my opinion this will lead to three adverse and unintended consequences.
One of the items slated for discussion by the Charter Commission is the size of the City Council. Recommendations regarding ward vs. at large, potential term limits and staggered elections are also on the table, which will be covered in future posts here on NewtonForum. For now, let’s talk size. I have heard that the impetus for the Charter Commission review was to reduce the size of the city council. However, I have not heard any examples of why our current size is bad.
For more see: http://newtonforum.org/size-matter-opinions-charter-commissions-recommendation-city-council/ By Nancy Tener
Although we all appreciate the time and good intentions of everyone on the Newton Charter Commission, I am thoroughly unconvinced that its proposal improves Newton’s existing charter. The proposed charter shrinks representation which will multiply the workload for each councilor, weakens voters’ relationships to elected officials and seems likely to diminish deliberation. If I were to vote on the proposed charter today, for those reasons, I would vote no and I would encourage my friends and neighbors to do the same. For more, see Nancy's commentary in the 3/9/2017 Newton Tab. By Andy Levin
Members of the Charter Commission deserve great credit for investing the past year studying our city’s government and recommending ways to improve it. They’ve spent countless hours and vast amounts of energy in service to our community. Just as importantly, the commission’s process has been transparent and its members accessible. What’s more, many of the commission’s recommendations to date — including adopting reasonable term limits and streamlining the area councils — make a lot of sense. That said, I continue to think the Charter Commission is making a critical mistake with its centerpiece proposal: reducing the City Council from 24 to 12 members and abolishing the position of ward councilors. Read the rest of Andy Levin's Newton Tab editorial here. Newton has always prided itself on being a well run city with high degrees of citizen participation. But now it seems that, as part a special commission’s review of the decades-old city charter, grassroots democracy may have to take a back seat to some notion of streamlining and efficiency.
See Marjorie Arons-Barron Blog Post for more. Memo to Newton Charter Commission: Keep your hands off our ward councilors
See Marjorie Arons-Barron's blog post for more. By Andy Levin
A couple weeks ago, the Charter Commission took heavy criticism in some circles for its straw vote recommending a City Council of 13 at-large members and the elimination of ward councilors. Your TAB editor, who disagreed with the Charter Commission’s plan, met with disapproval from many who support it ...and was also on the receiving end of some unexpected words of praise. I should have predicted the charter review debate was going to, at least in part, tie in with the citywide conversation about housing development. The signs were there this summer, but I am not nearly shrewd enough to have connected the dots at the time. While it’s always unwise to paint with too broad a brush, there does seem to be a correlation between support for a much smaller, entirely at-large City Council and affordable housing development. Likewise, many Newton Villages Alliance members and their fellow travelers opposed to multi-unit housing expansion in the city oppose the Charter Commission’s vision. Weirdly, I found myself concurring with the latter group, after 18 months of fervently rebutting their anti-development stance. Read more of Andy Levin's commentary here. I have no problem with the Charter Commission reviewing the size of the City Council, but its unanimous decision early on in this important matter bodes ill for trusting any recommendations it might make.
There is little factual analysis as to why 13 citywide councilors would be better; there are reasons why it would be worse — e.g. more work for fewer councilors, the threat of electing citywide slates creating less diversity of opinions and, most importantly, less representation in the wards for our residents. The Charter Commission has started out with a unanimous and narrow-minded agenda — exactly what a Charter Commission should not have. — Dick Blazar, ward councilor in Ward 6 http://newton.wickedlocal.com/article/20160506/opinion/160506934 At the April 13 meeting the Charter Commission voted to reduce the size of the City Council from the present 24 to 13.
The merits of this reduction were discussed (briefly) in the context of several suggestions that were listed in the meeting notice. One of the items that stood out to me asked: “Would a smaller Council be more effective or efficient?” There was no definition of the word “efficient” even though I raised the question in the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting. Our governments are established to be democratic, not necessarily efficient. If you want efficiency in government there are plenty of models for that and I daresay you wouldn’t like to live under any of them. — Ernest Loewenstein, Newton Highlands LOWELL IS MOST commonly associated with block upon block of old mill buildings; immigrants from Asia and the world over; and tough streets, the kind that produced famed boxer Micky Ward. What probably does not come to mind are tidy tree-lined boulevards and quiet blocks filled with exquisitely restored Victorian homes, many of them mansion-scale.
For more see: https://commonwealthmagazine.org/politics/why-whites-control-lowell-city-government/ |