While many will undoubtedly come to support his decision to focus on his future marriage and family, from a public policy standpoint in Davis it points out a glaring problem in our system, as it is a system that if it does not completely preclude young councilmembers with young families, it certainly puts a huge strain on them.
Mr. Souza has admitted that he has had to take a rather sizable financial hit in order to do so. He has had to drop some clients that would pose a conflict and cut back on his own work and time.
For Lamar Heystek, or any young person to serve on the council, he must earn a living with at least a full time job, he must serve on the council which is essentially a full time job plus, and then he has to devote time to his wife and his children when they are born. This is a huge time obligation.
As he said on Friday, “I believed back in October, and I still believe today, that continuing to pursue elective office at this time would not be conducive to my personal ambition to be a successful husband and father within the next four years.”
How much different would his calculus have been if council service was not tantamount to second full time job for almost no additional compensation?
Would we be having this discussion if Council in addition to the health benefits it already provides, also provided the council with a median range income?
We will never fully know the answer to this, but from the standpoint of good public policy, it is self-defeating to end up with a group on the council that is either retired or independently wealthy. It is also self-defeating to ask that councilmembers serve us without some form of compensation.
Having a more diverse group of applicants would aid our city. Right now, there are three known candidates seeking two seats. In the past that number has often been more than twice that. We ask our council to lead us, to our criticism, to work long and hard hours, to make difficult decisions, and to do so, virtually for nothing.
It is very true that right now the city is fiscally hurting. The cost of paying five councilmembers a median range income would be somewhere between $300,000 and $350,000 per year. That is not chump change, but it also would not break the bank.
However, that cost would be easily mitigated simply by providing Davis with a more diverse group of applicants for the leadership position.
At the same time, it has become abundantly clear to me in the last four years of observing the process, that the councilmembers need their own staffers. Currently all five councilmembers rely on staff reports, but it is painfully clear that staff reports are tailored to the council majority and that minority members have to staff themselves.
When Lamar Heystek took to the staff table last June and presented his own alternative budget, he did not have some staffer work on that budget. He took his own time and ran his own numbers to produce that budget. That was time after his normal working hours. It was an example of great leadership and why this city will miss Mr. Heystek and those like him, but it was a perfect example of the problem with the current system.
The members of the County Board of Supervisors earn a salary and are able to hire two staff members, why do we expect our council leaders who have a thankless job to do less?
In the coming weeks and months it will become apparent what Davis has lost when Councilmember Heystek declined to run. All three of the current council candidates supported Covell Village or will support a future Covell Village. We need a person of Lamar Heystek’s independence, courage, and integrity to lead this city through a fiscal crisis that the majority on council refuse to acknowledge.
That loss is now irreversible, today I ask that we take steps in the coming years to prevent future losses in Davis’ leadership.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“The cost of paying five councilmembers a median range income would be somewhere between $300,000 and $350,000 per year. That is not chump change, but it also would not break the bank.”
With all due respect Dave, have you noticed that were in a Great Depression II ?
Do you really want to shower those already on state retirements with even more ??
This is the kind of “would not break the bank” thinking that indeed BROKE THE BANK !!!
regards,
the observant outsider
All too true, David. Your suggestion would begin to shift the power balance running this city from the City Manager and his staff to the City Council representatives, elected by the citizens to represent their interests. Part-time staffers for the Council members would enable them to evaluate staff reports and recommendations from a position of knowledge and analysis,obviously an important improvement. It would be well worth the rather small budget cost which would most likely over time, be balanced at least in part, by city staff budget reduction outlays reflecting this power balance shift.
David… to be consistent, you should be not looking at the 30-35k salaries (for at best 25% time work) you propose, without also taking into account the medical/dental/other cafeteria benefits the council members already enjoy. And the implications for their PERS retirement benefits, and retiree medical. Then, how much should the paid staffers be compensated and their benefits (if any).
To be consistent, I would suggest we are other giving those medical benefits, so the additional cost would only be the salary, I also disagree with you that we are talking about 25% time work. That only covers a councilmeeting with the closed session. That does not cover preparation time, constituent time, and other things. The next and separate question would be how much pay and benefits the staffers would get.
Sorry outsideoftown, but I think one reason we are in this position is that we do not have independent councilmembers, instead we have councilmembers reliant on city staff collectively and councilmembers who are either independently wealthy or who otherwise have their time unencumbered by having to pursue other gainful employment.
To both, it seems a small price to pay for better representation.
BTW, there could be additional savings along the lines of davisite2’s comments… we could shift from a City Manager model to a City Administrator model. Could work if we made CC full time, at the median wage (+benefits) suggested, add staff for each Council-member, and decrease current staff accordingly…
That may be a good approach, although I know most cities this size don’t do that.
To do a good job as a city councilmember does takes 40 to 60 hours a week. It is work that you take home with you both nights and weekends.
County supervisors are paid about $60,000 a year and I have been told that they receive a cafeteria cash-out of about $8 or $9 thousand dollars a year (one of the highest except for Davis) and a car allowance almost equal the Davis city council member “salaries”. They also each have full time paid assistants. In this week’s Davis Enterprise, Helen Thompson complained that $60,000 a year plus a potential additional $8 or $9 thousand a year isn’t enough for the supervisor job.
I know that I work incredibly hard as a councilmember. We study the issues, go to umpteen long meetings, meet with constituents and countless developers large and small. But I spend much of my time double-checking staff’s work.
To give you just one “small” example: When I began to realize that public works staff seemed to have little awareness of concern or the cumulative cost of their combined water/sewer/groundwater system upgrades, I did my own research, spending countless hours talking with outside experts. Then, helped by other citizens, the Enterprise reporting and the Vanguard, I worked on educating citizens about cumulative fiscal impact of these proposed projects on water rates.
Finally, after years of stressful, unpleasant council meetings with a council majority that was particularly resistant on this subject, I was able to bring enough public pressure on the council that they hired the two world-class consultants that I had been imploring council them hire for two years.
These experts gathered a group of top experts in waste water treatment from a number of different states, and came back a few weeks ago and told us that we could save about $100 million over the design that public works was barreling forward with. A savings of $100 million dollars will make have a noticeable effect on citizens’ future water bills.
I feel strongly that we deserve a modest salary. I know that Steven Souza has given up a lot of income to serve on the council. Lamar has paid a huge opportunity cost in his career development. Personally, I live a frugal lifestyle, but I have the same concerns as the average person about old age security. I ended up with sufficient savings by storing old victorian units in Boston to be able to survive on my husband’s one salary and to devote myself to public service, but not so much as to provide reasonable old-age security. Even the very small pension that would result from a very modest salary be helpful.
Again, county supervisors make a salary of about $60,000 a years, yet the job has less impact upon Davis citizen than does the job of city council member. Without a charter, the city council members can be paid up to $27,000 a year, which is still a pittance.
If we want to attract new city council members who will stick with the job long enough to develop knowledge and expertise and who do not just want to use the job as a stepping stone to higher office or other advancement, I think that providing council members with at least the $27,000 a year salary allowed without a charter would be a good start.
Correction: by restoring old victorian units in Boston
[i]”County supervisors are paid about $60,000 a year …”[/i]
In fact, their salary this fiscal year is $59,000.
[i]”… and I have been told that they receive a cafeteria cash-out of about $8 or $9 thousand dollars a year.”[/i]
According to their benefit summary page ([url]http://www.yolocounty.org/Index.aspx?page=1259[/url]), elected officials for Yolo County qualify for a full cash-out, worth $20,107 this year:
“Each employee receives a benefit package of $20,107 annually to purchase health, dental and vision insurance. Any remaining balance of the benefit package will be paid to the employee as taxable earnings.”
They also qualify for a CalPERS retirement under the 2.5% at 55 formula. The “employee share” for supervisors is 8% of their salary. However, Yolo County taxpayers pay 7% of that and the supervisors pay 1%*.
For a supervisor who is medically covered elsewhere, he gets $78,517 in take-home pay ($59,000 + $20,107 – $590) plus, upon retirement after 8 years in office, he will get a pension with a Present Value of $304,531 (if he lives 30 years) or $212,938 (if he lives 20 years)**.
* “Yolo County pays a large portion of the member contribution approximately 7% of salary for miscellaneous and 9% of salary for safety). Employees in the miscellaneous category pay approximately 1% of salary toward retirement.”
** $59,000 x 8 x .025 = $11,800. The pension inflates by 2% per year. Inflation tends to run at 3% per year. Thus, the effective interest rate for PV purposes is 1%.
The value of a Council member staffer and compensation to Council members for the time necessary to adequately understand the issues brought before them by city staff can be summed up quite succinctly… KNOWLEDGE EQUALS POWER.
Based on Sue’s ideas of having CC members have time to become experts, & davisite2’s concepts why not dismiss all professional staff & at-will city employees, and let individual CC members select their teams of advisers to run the City? If the citizens & CC can’t trust staff, remove them & move on…
Why can’t you have a situation like the county where there is a CAO but also individual staffers? Also, what if three of the members trust staff and two can’t, then the two are screwed, as they are right now?
hpierce… I will assume that your suggestion that ALL staff be removed is sarcasm and hyperbole-for-effect. We obviously need city staff to run the business of the city. We also need Council reps who,armed with knowledge and clear critical reasoning powers, diligently defend the interests of those who elected them.
A paid City Council is a good idea. The cost would be insignificant relative to the overall size of the budget.
IMO, they should have the same compensation package and staff support as the County Board of Supervisors … and be expected to devote full time to city business. In addition, the entire council should stand for re-election prior to the transition.
What are the downsides to having a city charter?
Dumbest idea I ever heard !
In the current economic climate, a paid City Council is not going to happen anytime soon…
Avatar: You get what you pay for. Our council has proven that in spades.
[i]”Avatar: You get what you pay for. Our council has proven that in spades.”[/i]
That may be so. By offering no remuneration, you eliminate some potential candidates. However, I think the daunting task of raising $25,000 to $40,000 for a campaign eliminates even more good candidates.
It is clear to me that privately financed campaigns serve the special interests of those who put up the money. The candidates who take money from builders or contractors or firemen to win office pay off their contributors, even when doing so is against the general interest.
So if our goal is to have better policies and more independent members of the council, I would first like to see public financing of council campaigns. That would do more than salaries to raise the quality of our candidates.*
If you look at a candidate like Rob Roy, who partly by choice did not, and partly by reality could not, raise money for his campaigns, you would see a very well qualified attractive candidate who most people dismissed because they did not know anything about him. If he had as much money as Don Saylor had, I think their vote totals might have been quite different.
*The biggest question–and I don’t necessarily have a good answer for it–with public financing is what to do with the crank candidates who, even with tens of thousands of dollars would not be serious. If the city put up $100,000, that would be sufficient for 5 competitive candidates to run for office in Davis. But if 20 filled out the paperwork, just because many thought getting some free public money would be fun, public financing is destroyed. … One option is to only give funds to those who can gather a long list of registered voters to sign a petition for them. But often people will sign one of those petitions with no interest in supporting the candidate, but rather the get away from the petitioner as quickly as possible.
How about less government spending instead of more? There is no way city council members in a city with 60,000 people need staff members. City staff is paid to handle day to day business and prepare reports for city council meetings. In fact, if I am correct, it is worked into the current salaries of staff to not only prepare these items, but also to attend city council meetings and give their reports. If you want staff members, move across the river to Sacramento and run for office.
Guys, this is Davis. You aren’t asked to handle foreign relations, or global warming. You are asked to balance the budget.
Come on, staff members? Ha, this is a joke.
Also, if you are going to complain about this being a full time job, don’t go into PUBLIC service. You don’t do it for the money, you do it for the community. If you are not there for that reason, you are there for the wrong reasons. I don’t know anyone who goes into government for the money.
Rich: What about district level primaries to select a slate of candidates for a run-off election … with online voting to control cost? That would lower the barrier to entry. Just brainstorming.
That’s an interesting idea, Norm.
I am one who wishes we had district elections for the Davis City Council. (Some posters on this board mistakenly believe we need to be a charter city to have them. That is not true. I looked it up. See Gov’t Code § 34871.)
If we divided Davis into 5 parts of roughly 12,000 people in each*, the cost per candidate of reaching the voters would be far less. However, some candidates — the Dave Rosenberg/Don Saylor types** — would still go out and raise $30,000 and try to bury everyone in an endless stream of fliers and other advertisements, and much of the money for those would come from people who want the city to pay them off many times over.
*We could also divide Davis into 7 districts. I realize that it is natural to think of Davis as West, Central, North, East and South, and thus 5 districts. It’s also the case that we have always had 5 members on the city council, so folks think that’s what it should be. But it seems to me that as our city is so much larger than it was when I moved here (12,000 in 1965) and so much larger than when we incorporated (990 residents in 1917), we ought to have a larger city council. We have gone from 198 residents per member of the council in 1917 to 12,800 residents per member, today.
**I am not saying, by the way, that Judge Rosenberg and Mr. Saylor have the same political views. (On that, I’m not sure.) I equate them instead as the two city council candidates who in their campaigns were very good at raising far more money than all of their competitors, outspending them, and plastering every square inch of my mailboxwith their glossy ads.
In case anyone cares, here is exactly what California Code § 34871 ([url]http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/cacode/GOV/1/4/d2/1/4/2/s34871[/url]) says: [quote]At any municipal election, or special election held for that purpose, the legislative body may submit to the registered voters an ordinance providing for the election of members of the legislative body in any of the following ways:
(a)By districts in five, seven, or nine districts.
(b)From districts in five, seven, or nine districts.
(c)By districts in four, six, or eight districts, with an elective mayor pursuant to Article 5 (commencing with Section 34900).
(d)From districts in four, six, or eight districts, with an elective mayor pursuant to Article 5 (commencing with Section 34900).
The term “by districts” as used in this article shall mean election of members of the legislative body by voters of the district alone. The term “from districts” shall mean election of members of the legislative body who are residents of the district from which they are elected by the voters of the entire city. “Geographical area making up the district” shall in the case of elections by district mean the district, and in the case of elections from districts shall mean the entire city except with respect to the residence requirements imposed by Section 34882.
That ordinance may also be qualified for the ballot by means of an initiative measure in accordance with Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 9200) of Division 9 of the Elections Code.
[/quote]
I understand the natural progression to become President of the United States begins with being a member on the Davis City Council, but I think you are all getting ahead of yourself. The first step to figure this all out is that we are talking about the city government of a city of 60,000 people, most of which are students at UC Davis. I understand that everyone on the city council thinks very highly of themselves, and that is fine.
But on the important scale, local politics is a 1. The talk of an executive form of government, city council districts, etc. is for cities the size of Sacramento and above. In fact, there are only 5 executive forms of city government in the STATE (SF, Oakland, Fresno, LA and San Diego).
Balance the budget, lower my taxes, and the burrowing owls will save themselves. That is all I ask of you and the owls.
“(d)From districts in four, six, or eight districts, with an elective mayor pursuant to Article 5 (commencing with Section 34900).”
That would be my choice.
[quote]”(d)From districts in four, six, or eight districts, with an elective mayor pursuant to Article 5 (commencing with Section 34900).”
That would be my choice. [/quote]
And that sir, is a terrible choice. What is everyone’s obsession with an executive mayor? It is mind boggling. What is wrong with the current system? Let me point this out since none of you understand what I am saying – there is no city in the state of California that is the size of Davis that has an executive mayor. NONE. Do you think that having an executive form of government is going to solve all of our problems? No, getting back to basics will be a start.
So I ask again, what is everyone’s obsession with an executive form of mayor? And why do we need to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for city council members and their staff? Sounds like some people are in desperate need of a job.
I think the argument to compensate city council members is a rational one. Other than the bad fiscal-prudence tone it would generate, my main concern would be reflected in the adage: “what gets measured gets done”.
I don’t want to just hand cash to each candidate. I want to see some significant pay for performance components… the amounts paid derived from both short and long-term common fiscal and community development goals. The primary of these should be to balance the budget during every year while in office and maintain a level of reserve. Then maybe attach a portion of a retirement payout to a calculation applied to the same number of years of future budget performance after the candidate retires or is voted out.
In addition, there should be a citizen survey performed every year (going to one email address per household, using online survey tools) asking for simple yes/no questions to a variety of questions that assess the level of service quality delivered by key departments (since they directly and indirectly serve at the pleasure of the council) and the council members.
For example:
Q: In your experience working with the Community Development Department to obtain building permits, was their service satisfactory? Yes No N/A
Q: In your experience with the Davis Police Department, did the employees of that department treat you with appropriate skill, professionalism and respect. Yes No N/A
Q: In her performance as a council member, did Sue Greenwald demonstrate satisfactory commitment and effort to improve affordable housing in Davis? Yes No N/A
Next, city employees should be given a survey to assess the demonstrated commitment, intelligence, cooperation and work ethic of each city council member.
The names and addresses of all citizen and city employee respondents would be kept anonymous. The results would be published on the city’s website for all to see.
Because the goals and measures are common to the council, it would foster greater collaboration and cooperation.
Budget $80k per candidate ($60k pay and $20k retirement), and apply a weighted mathematical model designed by Greg Kuperberg based on the performance and survey results. The final tally would be the “success score”. Let’s say Sue performed well and earned a score of 82% (I suggest we set the performance bar high), and she takes home $49,200 at the end of year and has $16,400 deposited in a retirement account. Sue is able to take better vacations, save for her retirement, and the citizens have some sense of value returned for their hard-earned tax dollars making their way to Sue’s pocket.
Also, because Sue knows that future budget success will be applied to her future retirement payout, she works a little harder for the long-term fiscal health of the city.
Other than this, I prefer to see all government staffed by polar opposites on the wealth and ideological spectrum, gridlocked, forever suspicious of each other’s motives, and prone to shouting and emotional outbursts.
“What is everyone’s obsession with an executive mayor? It is mind boggling. What is wrong with the current system? Let me point this out since none of you understand what I am saying – there is no city in the state of California that is the size of Davis that has an executive mayor. NONE. Do you think that having an executive form of government is going to solve all of our problems?”
No one, not one person said that having another form of government will solve all of our problems.
What is wrong with the current system? I think that has been laid out already. The current staff serves the will of the council majority meaning that minority council member either staff themselves or get volunteers to do so.
I’m not convinced that going away from a city manager city is the answer, there are some hybrid systems out there that might do the trick, I used the example of the county as one such example where there would still be a city manager, but each councilmember would get their own staff. What would be wrong with that other than cost?
[b]California law:[/b] [i]”(d)From districts in four, six, or eight districts, with an [u]elective[/u] mayor pursuant to Article 5 (commencing with Section 34900).” [/i]
[b]Don Shor:[/b] [i]”That would be my choice.”[/i]
[b]Enemy:[/b] [i]”And that sir, is a terrible choice. What is everyone’s obsession with an [u]executive[/u] mayor? It is mind boggling.”[/i]
Enemy, the reason your mind is boggled is because you did not correctly read what Don Shor wrote. You have mixed up “an elective mayor” with “an executive mayor.” They are not the same thing; and here Don did not call for “an executive mayor,” for which you have said he makes a “terrible choice.” You owe Don an apology.
The system described in Article 5 is just a voting procedure, whereby 6 of the 7 members of the city council would be voted in by their districts, but the mayor’s position would be selected by all voters in the City of Davis.
The mayor elected in such a system would have no more authority than any other members of the council, other than the authority to run the meetings as Davis mayors now run meetings.
The reason for such a voting process in a district system is that it gives the people the choice as to who their mayor is. If we had, say, 7 distinct districts, then the person chosen as mayor by the other members of the council would have received no votes (that is, no authorization) outside of his/her section of town.
So cities get around that by electing the mayor only in an at-large election.
You imply that having “an elective mayor” would permit the mayor of Davis to hire or fire department heads and lesser employees. That notion is incorrect, if that really is what you think Don advocated.
[b]Enemy:[/b] [i]”What is wrong with the current system?”[/i]
There are three problems as I see it:
1. It costs a tremendous amount of money to run an effective campaign over the entirety of Davis;
2. The money givers in these expensive campaigns require and get huge paybacks in policy, which is harmful to the general interest of Davis; and
3. The system of having the mayor selected the way we now do — where the top vote-getter in an election serves as mayor in his 3rd and 4th years of his four-year term of office — can result in a mayor who is either ineffective at running meetings or is unpopular with the majority of his colleagues on the council. (This was starkly true when Suzy Boyd was mayor on a council she routinely lost 1-4 votes.)
My ideal would be to have an odd-number of district elections and have the council itself select the mayor (which is how, for example, Congress picks its leaders, as do our chambers in the state legislature, and most parliaments select leaders). But that does present the problem of having mayors who won office with no votes in 6/7ths of Davis.
[b]Enemy:[/b] [i]”Let me point this out since none of you understand what I am saying – there is no city in the state of California that is the size of Davis that has an [u]executive[/u] mayor. NONE.”[/i]
Yes, but you are the only person on this board who has ever considered the idea of Davis having an executive mayor. You seem to not understand that Don was suggesting we have an elective mayor. They are different ideas.
You say that it takes too much money know to run for City Council, but wouldn’t it just add more money to the mix if you were to create more city council districts plus an at-large election for Mayor? What would be the point of electing a mayor if he/she doesn’t have anymore power than they do now?
Let me edit my last question. Don’t voters in city elections already choose who they want to be mayor? The most popular (highest vote getter) gets to be mayor in the third and fourth year of their term. So residents make their choice that way.
As Rich has pointed out, an elective mayor can be strong-mayor (executive) or weak-mayor. We presently have a council-manager system. My preference would be for a directly-elected mayor, but not an executive mayor. A directly-elected mayor is more accountable to the public. I do think the mayor should be setting the agenda, not the city manager.
More important, though, I think district elections are long overdue in Davis. We have a unique opportunity right now with the high turnover and the fact that the remaining incumbents would not have to compete directly.
Enemy, I love the way you make a huge mistake in your previous post, it gets pointed out to you, and you ignore the correction completely. It must be wonderful to have so much self-love.
[b]ENEMY:[/b] [i]”You say that it takes too much money know to run for City Council, but wouldn’t it just add more money to the mix if you were to create more city council districts plus an at-large election for Mayor?”[/i]
I don’t favor electing the mayor at-large. But I agree that such an election for that office would be expensive. Right now, top candidates for the council raise around $40,000, much of that from special interests which desire paybacks. A citywide race for mayor probably would attract a couple of candidates capable of raising that much money each time and (practically) preclude all those who either don’t have such strong ties to the donors or have moral qualms about taking so much private money and then rewarding donors with lucrative policies which favor the donors.
By contrast, district elections in districts which had, say 9,000 residents each, would be quite cheap on a district by district basis. If you have lived in Davis a long time, you will recall that when Davis had less than 20,000 people, most of the electioneering for city council was done door-to-door. That doesn’t cost anything but time. Every candidate back then could reach every household by simply walking the neighborhoods, often with a few volunteers in tow. They sometimes augmented the door-to-door campaigning with a brochure.
But that became impossible and impractical once Davis grew past 25,000 residents. Now that we are around 64,000, most candidates don’t bother to walk any neighborhoods, though I recall seeing Lamar traipsing around the Bird Streets four years ago.
The question then is, how much would it cost to run an effective campaign in a district with 9,000 residents? My guess is around $3,000 — or $1 per household. In other words, find 15 couples to attend one fundraising party and have each contribute $100. All of the mailing costs would be gone. The need for big ads in The Entperprise would be gone. The need to go hat-in-hand to the firefighters’ union would (largely) be gone.
In a district race in which it came down to making a strong impression on your neighborhood — perhaps winning candidates would have already established themselves as leaders in their neighborhood associations — I would think it would even be possible to compete without raising any money at all, if a candidate had the time to reach out and shake hands.
The end result would be a council composed of people who didn’t owe their victory to taking tens of thousands of dollars from special interests who require paybacks at the expense of the general interest.
[b]ENEMY:[/b] [i]”What would be the point of (directly) electing a mayor if he/she doesn’t have anymore power than they do now?”[/i]
Although I don’t favor that route, I explained the reason why above, Enemy: “The reason for such a voting process in a district system is that it gives the people the choice as to who their mayor is. If we had, say, 7 distinct districts, then the person chosen as mayor by the other members of the council would have received no votes (that is, no authorization) outside of his/her section of town. … (If the council elected by districts picks the mayor, that) presents the problem of having mayors who won office with no votes in 6/7ths of Davis.”
[b]ENEMY:[/b] [i]”Don’t voters in city elections already choose who they want to be mayor? The most popular (highest vote getter) gets to be mayor in the third and fourth year of their term. So residents make their choice that way.”[/i]
That is true. I don’t think it is the best system for picking a mayor. Even if we did not have district elections, I would favor letting the majority on the council choose who runs the meetings. That’s how it was in Davis for our city’s first 80 or so years.
The reason I think the council should pick the mayor is because the council has to function as a collective body, and they have an incentive to pick someone to run the meetings who has skills for that job.
Just because someone finishes with the second or third highest vote total in a field of say eight candidates does not mean that member of the city council would not do the best job of running the meetings and making sure that the process in the meetings was fair and efficient.
Even though the mayor has no more of a vote than other members of the council and even though the Brown Act makes it harder for a majority to take action as a majority, there always is a majority group on every city council. Insofar as that is true, that majority should pick the mayor, run the meetings and take responsibility for the policies they enact.
Really what happens is this system makes it easier for business and lobbies to come in a bribe the public officials through campaign contribution. In short, unions pay for their salary increases by donating to the elected officials.
Souza compains about losing clients? Well make no mistake, Souza is a business man and won’t do something that’s financially compromising to him. He’s making tons of money on the side lines in the form of campaign contributions.
“Souza is a business man and won’t do something that’s financially compromising to him.”
Yes he will. It’s called public service for a reason. Campaign contributions are of no personal or business benefit to Steven (or any other councilmember).