ChangeDecatur

ChangeDecatur Seeks Candidates for April 2009 Election

July 30, 2008 - ChangeDecatur and its supporters representing over 20 organizations, announce their intent to endorse and support five candidates for the April 2009, City of Decatur municipal elections.  ChangeDecatur encourages anyone interested in promoting local government reform to consider running for elected office and to seek an endorsement from ChangeDecatur.

Brian Burcham of ChangeDecatur stated: ”We believe that the best interests of Decatur will be served by electing representatives that are committed to broader representation of all citizens and to accountable city leadership. We welcome the chance to expand our coalition to include those seeking public office.”

In the April 2009 municipal election, voters will elect five officials to city government:

• a mayor to the remaining two-year term of Paul Osborne,
• a city council member to the remaining two-year term of Michael Carrigan who is serving as interim mayor, and,
• three members of the city council for four-year terms.

For a copy of the candidate questionaire - click here.

Would Alderman Better Focus Attention on City Council

Today's H&R, (good reporting cudos to Ken Lowe) reports on a frustrating situation in Decatur that was brought to light by Mr. Robert Maulding, a neighborhood resident, on the near west side of Decatur. As noted in the article, over 300 police reports have been file related to one block in the city in the last six months. Quoting from the article: "I spoke to this council two and a half months ago," Maulding said. "In that time, we've had six assaults, a murder, a rape and who knows how many burglaries."

This appears to be one of many examples of where this form of government lets down citizens and neighborhoods in Decatur. Simply put, if Decatur elected representatives from discrete areas (or wards), would these citizens have a voice and advocate for these challenges.

We say YES.

We know that citizens do appproach select council members and often receive attention and help. However, we rarely see these neighborhood issues raised to the level of a study session, change in policy, a financial commitment or a vote. Too often, the results seem weak.

For a link to the Herald & Review article - click here.

Staff Claims Outrageous re Negotiation Costs

In today's Herald & Review, the city staff "blamed" the firefighters union and other city workers for large legal expenses incurred for contract bargaining and related labor disputes. The article can be read by clicking here.

The sub-headline reports that the city has spent $156,000 for legal fees. We believe that the actual amount may be greater than that if all expenses are included. We further believe that these legal fees could have been avoided with more openness and more “good faith” bargaining.

The contentiousness is not due to the firefighters or any other city workers. This is completely the result of an acrimonious approach taken by the Osborne/Garman regime and continued to date by John Smith, the interim city manager. More importantly, it is directly due to the city attempting to unreasonably push down high health insurance costs onto the the city workers when the Osborne/Garman regime virtually refused to manage these costs for years.

The failure of Osborne/Garman to effectively manage these costs since 2004 has cost the city and its taxpayers millions of dollars. The Osborne/Garman regime have resisted every effort to control these costs and bargain in good faith. We believe that when health costs are known for the current calendar year, utilizing a different claims administrator/process, the city will save $1 to $2 million (or more). Recall that the Osborne/Garman regime recommended retaining the prior health administrator and presented erroneous analysis to support their flawed recommendation. It was city workers and their leaders that brought the errors to light and were publicly rebuked by the Osborne/Garman regime for revealing the flawed analysis. In the end, truth prevailed and the Council voted to award the administration to a new firm.

City workers have merely tried to persuade the city to bargain in good faith regarding the employees’ share of health costs. The amount of legal fees incurred by city staff in fighting with city workers is a substantial portion of the remaining differences in the city's workers position and the Osborne/Garman position related to sharing health costs.

Don’t overlook the pattern established in the Osborne/Garman regime. They spent three years or more disputing the cable franchise agreement with Insight and were only bailed out through the corporate takeover of Insight by Comcast. They also spent a year or more in acrimonious negotiations with Macon County over Animal Control services (a $350,000 agreement). They are now two or more years past the end of the last employee contract with firefighters and city workers. The uncontrolled city staff, and the remnants of Osborne/Garman, plague us with ineffective and wasteful city spending.

This is what “professional city management brings”? NO it is what unaccountable leadership brings.

We have to stop this abuse of power by the city staff successors to Osborne/Garman. Call your councilperson (if you know them) and ask that they rein in staff and bargain in good faith.

FYI. The city’s negotiating team includes Jerry Bauer, Wendy Morthland and a Chicago based law firm. Is there truly no one in Decatur that could represent the city? Why send hundreds of dollars per hour to other cities?

Change is in the Air? A better way

The City of Mattoon elected representatives voted to place on the November ballot a change in the form of government. Today's, Herald & Review provided a report about this decision << click here. Mattoon currently operates under the commission form of government with a professional adminstrator and is placing the alternative of selecting an council/manager form of government before the voters. While we are not fans of the council/manager form of government, we understand that it works effectively in some communities. However, we should applaud several things that we think Matton did well:

1. The current commission form of government empowered and listened to a group of citizens about government reform. The recommendations of a Form of Government Advisory Committee were the basis for the Commission's action.
2. The current Mayor and commission members supported placing the matter before voters as soon as possible. 
3. The Matton commission members trusted the voters to make a choice on their form of government. They did not express an opinion as to which way voters should vote.

A portion of the article follows -

Foster and Elitism?? Insulting Decaturites? - See Opinion Blog

A recent blog post from Eric Johnson raises a thoughtful question regarding the implications of an assertion by the recently appointed Council member Larry Foster. Mr. Fostered stated that having more representation in city government (instituting some districts/wards) in Decatur could be typified as a "corrupt" form of government. Many of us were distrubed by these false assertions when they were made. But, Mr. Johnson seems to have put his finger on something. Is Mr. Foster "in all due respect" insulting the citizens of Decatur as not being able to self-govern? Please read on at Mr. Johnson's essay. Thanks Eric for permission to post your ideas here. To see the entire post got to our opinion blog by clicking here. Other opinions are welcome.

One of Eric's more focused concerns is repeated here:

I think Aristotle gives the answer in his discussion of oligarchies(basically the concept claims  those who gain power seek to retain that power and are reluctant to relinquish that power, many times at the expense of the greater majority) .......

........Further and continuing, following Mr. Foster's logic to it's illogical conclusion, ( and I hope he will correct me if I misstate the obvious?) should we presume that [if] Decatur [were] to change forms of City government to a form he(Foster) publicly claims is corrupt, should we then assume that Councilman Foster believes those Decatur citizen's who would participate in that system would be corrupt or corruptible by virtue of the nature of the system itself? Should we assume Mr. Foster believes only criminals would seek these positions in city government? Personally, I am offended by Mr. Foster's remarks and his insinuation that there are no qualified persons available for public office/service in our inner-city neighborhoods.......

........On my block alone live a retired librarian ,a school teacher, a small business owner.  I don't know about anyone else but I find it a direct insult to the residents of Decatur to suggest no qualified persons live in Decatur's varied/diverse core neighborhoods. There are accountants, attorneys, postmen and women, nurses, pastors, librarians, small business owners and many other (more than qualified) civic minded citizen's who would jump at the chance to participate in local government ......

District Representation Builds Consensus

We encourage everyone to look at history for perspective and insight. One editorial in the Herald & Review on February 10, 2008, caught our eye for its relevance to the debate about having districts/wards in Decatur and the merits of a strong mayor form of government. See the recap of the Herald & Review Editorial here.

What we found interesting was:

"In order to progress and solve any of the issues facing the city of Decatur, there needs to be a larger majority pulling in a common direction. That doesn't mean everyone has to agree in lockstep, but it does require an end to the wasteful in-fighting that was part of this election. It requires a unified sense of purpose or, as Decatur School Superintendent Gloria Davis says about education, the willingness to speak with "one voice."

and

"It's also safe to assume that at least some of the 59 percent, 10,605 voters, who voted to retain the council/manager form of government also have issues with city government and concerns about the future of the city."

and

"Bringing more unity to the community will require some compromises. Maybe it's council members elected by districts, while retaining the city manager form of government. Maybe it's an agreement on the type of successor to City Manager Steve Garman. Maybe it's making sure more people have a voice on community issues. Most likely, it's all of those things and more."

There is much to agree with in this editorial. While having a broader community consenus is desirable, no community in a democracy accomplishes this with "one voice". Nothing is more fundementally an antithesis to democracy than the idea that only one voice speaks for the community, unless that voice effectively represents all segments of the community and can be held accountable to them.

One reason to empower multiple segments in Decatur with district representation is to help build consensus and accountability. Providing each discrete group of voices (i.e. neighborhoods) effective advocates that live with, and understand, their needs and concerns strengthens the consensus. By aligning the voices of many into a cohesive plan for all of Decatur will strengthen consensus for appropriate actions.

The debate this week is whether individuals closely aligned with a business organization and living mostly in one or two parts of the city, effectively represent all of Decatur. We think not. More importantly, why do four of these people think their judgement should deny 7,000 voters, 18,000 voters or more the right to consider and decide this very important issue of representation in a democracy? Please ask them.

It is also noteworthy that "compromises" suggested by the Herald & Review have received limited traction in Decatur since the election. We wonder when the H&R will ask for accountability from those that ignore their counsel.

Decatur is Under Represented

Last fall, ChangeDecatur surveyed local governments all over Illinois and a handful of cities outside IL. We learned that Decatur was significantly under-represented. One way to measure representation is to divide the population by the number of elected council members. Of surveyed comparable IL cities, Decatur is least well represented. The number of citizens per council member was almost 13,000 versus an average of 8,900 for the comparison cities. Keep in mind that many of these cities, use aldermanic districts so that citizens have a single (sometimes two) council members that are focused on their community. We believe that Decatur needs districts and more council members. Here is the survey:

Survey of Representation and Forms of Government - November 2007

Also note that Decatur is at the low end of the range in Council fees and is one of very few cities that elects the entire council at large (East St. Louis is another.)

Email to Decatur City Council

ChangeDecatur sent an email today which emphasized a few key points that reflect on the merits of placing a binding referendum on the ballot to broaden the make-up of the Decatur City Council. Key amongst these points was that this referendum does not endorse any change, but specifically empowers voters to decide for themselves whether or not they want a different make-up of the Decatur City Council. For the entire email - see it below.

Decatur Needs Wards/Districts

Monday, July 7, 2008, the Decatur City Council will be having a second study session on the topic of modifying the make-up of the Decatur City Council. All interested parties are encouraged to attend the meeting and express their point of view on the need to have district/aldermanic wards in Decatur. It would be influential for city leaders to hear from all voices in the community on this topic. If you can’t attend the meeting, you should call or write your city council members. Key points are below.

• The real issue before the Council is whether there is sufficient interest in the community for the Council to initiate a referendum to determine whether the citizens of Decaturshould be enabled to VOTE on ward/district representation at a future election.
• The only reason to oppose this being on the ballot, is the fear that citizens would vote to change the way the council is elected.