Charter commission charting perilous path
“Fools rush in, Where angels fear to tread,” or so goes the first line of an old song. There is some wisdom to be gleaned by the Saratoga City Charter Commission humming that tune. In its effort to schedule a special election to vote on proposed charter changes, the commission has already engendered controversy before we even get to the merits of their proposal. That does not bode well for ultimate passage of the charter changes, if history is any harbinger of the future.
In NYS, Charter Commissions come and Charter Commissions go, and few in the last fifty years have been successfully approved, across the state. The death knell for many proposals, regardless of their merit and ultimate good intentions, seems to be getting mired in rancorous and often partisan debate long before the issues they tackle are presented to the voters for resolution. I know something about City Charters, having chaired a successful City Charter Revision Commission myself, in 1977, in the City of Oswego. It passed, and has become one of the few charter commissions to actually succeed in the last fifty years. Saratoga’s Charter Commission has decided to go down that road, unfortunately, and it does not bode well for eventual success.
First, to offer the charter question at a special election, where voter participation would be extremely limited, is itself a calculated political decision which does not speak well of the commission members views of the Saratoga electorate they need to convince. The more open , robust and public the debate is on the proposed Charter Commission, the more informed the citizenry will be to judge the ultimate key changes that are being proffered. It is almost as if the Commission, by scheduling an early vote, is manifesting its distrust of the electorate ahead of time. There is little merit in trying to slip something by the voters. Such efforts are usually doomed to fail.
It would be my suggestion that the Charter Commission pull the plug on their special election proposal and go back to the drawing board on its timing, as well as several other issues it is considering. That way their efforts may yet be salvaged rather than wind up on the dung heap of local electoral history as did the last two city Charter proposals.
The role of the Mayor, as far as I can tell, along with the notion of a potential “strong mayor” form of Charter, seems to not have been dealt with, and the idea of district representation by councilors seems to have gotten short shrift as well. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. There could be a combination of at-large and district representation which may have some merit . There are some who will say that my criticism of the Charter Commission is an act of sour grapes itself. That may be partially true, as I have been left with a bitter taste in my mouth having offered to help on two occasions, first as a member, which Mayor Yepsen rejected, and then as an expert witness which she assured me she would recommend, but which too , seems to have fallen by the wayside.
I supported Mayor Yepsen in the last two elections, but as the old saying goes, “No good deed goes unpunished.” All of my suggestions so far have fallen on deaf ears. As a result, I have no choice but to publicly air my concerns and my reservations about the way the Commission is proceeding. It is still not to late to change course and stop the Charter Commission’s ship from taking on water. It has not yet sunk.
But first it must slow down, trim its sails, and drop anchor before proceeding, lest it take on the shape of that Longfellow poem, “The wreck of the Hespress,” and meet a deep and ignominious grave. — John T. Sullivan Jr.
Saratoga Springs