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About the Candidates
With former City Attorney Chuck Semchena
joining the three incumbents on CITCOM, those who like and trust Chuck are
looking forward to the benefits his experience will bring. Those who
dislike and distrust Chuck fear that the recent personalized sour mood on
CITCOM will get worse, for reasons which include past tensions between the
Chuck and CITCOM and past tensions within the City Attorney's office
itself.
One answer to those who fear that
Semchena's very experience will tempt him to try to dominate
deliberations is that in his service on the Charter Review Committee
Chuck has proved collegial with Commissioner Ginotti, Chairman Dave
Poulton (also an attorney) and with the two laymen on the committee, of
whom I am one. He provides input and listens to others, and our
deliberations have been completely free of any personality-driven
distractions.
That last-minute postcard mailing by the
Democrats contains, even if distorted, some of the same reservations that
non-Democrats share about Semchena's performance, but for the Dems to
vigorously defend their deplorable interference in a non-partisan
election gives one pause. Fortunately, the known Democrats on CITCOM are
unlikely to let such partisanship affect deliberations on issues which
come to The Table.
One hopes that tempers have cooled since
the Drinkwine, Ginotti, Miller brouhaha which resulted in a couple of
walk-outs. Even if not, these are grown men and can be expected to park
their mutual dislikes outside the Commission Chamber.
Andrzejak and Lelito may need to exert
assertive diplomacy and Ellison will need to pound his gavel a bit more
frequently to maintain order in CITCOM
meetings.
The newbies as a group get a B for
their efforts the first time out. Andrew Androff was the most
successful in pulling votes, coming in fourth behind the Big 3 (Andrzejak,
Semchena, Drinkwine).
Mitzi Hoffman and Arthur Makarewicz
pulled about the same number of votes, not that many fewer
than Androff.
Clyde Esbri's
last-place finish was a surprise, especially because of his
service on the very visible Plan Commission and in the school community.
Three or four observers speculate that, just as many non-school-oriented
voters don't bother voting in school-only elections, the school community
didn't turn out for this city-focused election.
About that 18% voter turnout
Perhaps it ain't a bad thing.
The 7,916 of us who voted obviously have been paying attention, and care.
We have to assume that those 38,195 voters
who didn't show up weren't paying attention, and don't care. All of us in
the minority have friends and colleagues who almost boast that they don't read
the Trib, the Mirror, the Review, and don't watch commission meetings on
television.
Do we really want them to vote? |
About the Charter Amendments
Royal Oak voters approved four of the five proposed charter
amendments.
In 2005, they approved three of six
proposals.
They rejected, 37%-63%, Proposal 1 which
would have transferred the power to appoint the City Treasurer and the
City Assessor from CITCOM to the City Manager. They approved, 62%-37%,
Proposal 2 which transfers the power to appoint the Purchasing Agent from
CITCOM to the Finance Director.
In 2005, voters approved having the
Finance Director report directly to the City Manager, rather than to
CITCOM.
Two proposals were approved to replace
$1,000 limits on purchasing and bids before requiring CITCOM approval and
giving CITCOM the authority to set such limits during each budget cycle.
In 2005, voters removed dollar dimensions
and gave CITCOM authority to establish candidate filing fees and recount
fees.
Voters approved, 85%-15% the elimination of
the City Board of Canvassers and granting the City Clerk the authority to
outsource that function to Oakland County.
The Ordinance (not a charter amendment) to permanently
protect the location of the War Monuments on the newly named Veterans
Memorial Plaza was approved 89%-11%.
Speculation about the reason for defeat of Proposal 1 includes:
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Animosity toward and distrust of City
Manager Hoover.
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Unease in having the City Assessor not be
responsible directly to CITCOM.
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Awareness that there are suggestions that
the City Assessor's functions be outsourced or privatized.
COMMENT
Functionally, final authority resides in the City Commission, regardless
of any modification in the Table of Organization. Proposals such as this
are intended to apply good management practices, without regard to who is
in office at any given moment.
I'll recommend that we try again with
Proposal 1 in the next election.
The voters showed thoughtfulness in their
closer votes (54%-46% and 56%-44%) approving dropping the $1,000 limit. In
today's dollars those amounts are $7,000 to $9,000, depending on the year
the thousand dollar limit was established.
Again, voters can have-at commissioners
if they seem to get cavalier about setting new limits as they go through
the budget process. It is unlikely that CITCOM will get irresponsible.
It is sometimes difficult to decode what
voters are thinking. For example, in 2005 they rejected a simple request
to change the hour and day for filing deadlines for recounts, a purely
procedural matter.
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