Letter to editor: Former Alderman Makes Case for Ward-elected Councilors

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.

In 2006, he and Alderman Lipof proposed a home-rule petition for a 16-member city council, with one at-large and ward-elected councilor from each of Newton’s eight wards ( http://bit.ly/2x8ward).  They made a strong case noting that

1. Newton’s current 2:1 at-large to ward-elected ratio is unusual and that the vast majority of communities have a majority of ward-elected councilors,
2. there is no evidence that majority ward-elected councils yield legislative decisions not reflecting their city as a whole,
3. there are no historical patterns of Newton’s at-large or ward-elected councilors voting as a block,
4. Newton’s original decision to have a 2:1 ratio was based on myths not borne out by experience in Newton or other Massachusetts cities, and
5. a 1:1 at-large/ward-elected council would still have less ward-elected representation than nearly all communities in Massachusetts. 

Finally they laid out a plan by which current committee structures could be readily adapted to function with this proposed composition.

Mr. Vance fails to contrast the flawed charter commission proposal to his thoughtful efforts; specifically that the commission has rationalized its choices based on myths he discredited and discounting benchmark data he compiled. 
 
Residents may favor a smaller city council, but they also want to retain ward-elected councillors. If the commission’s charter eliminated 8 of the 16 current at-large councilors as he proposed, voters may have been amenable to that. But eliminating ward-elected councilors?  No thank you. 
 
Jack Prior
Newton Citizens for Local Representation
www.newtondemocracy.org