First it was the Water Utility, then the Transit and Parking Commission during the recent bus fare debate, now the Landmarks Commission. While the first two were obnoxious, this third one, raises some very interesting questions. I’ll break it down.
IT’S OFFICIAL: IT IS AN OBNOXIOUS PATTERN
Seriously, anytime a body decides something not to Mayor Dave’s liking he starts threatening members and trying to take away their power. It’s just getting obnoxious.
The Water Utility issue was about who had the power to manage the water utility. The Mayor won that one with very little opposition. (2007)
The second one, the Transit and Parking Commissioners fought back a little, and some members were replaced. (2008)
Now, its the Landmarks Commission. (2009)
WHO’S NEXT?
Apparently, the Mayor wasn’t paying attention when we revised Chapter 33 and, among other things, decided in 33.01(3):
(c) “Board or Commission” means a Sub-unit of the City, except for the Board of Estimates that is given some independent power to make determinations on behalf of the City of Madison.
(d) “Committee” means any Sub-unit other than a board or commission, and generally is limited to making recommendations or reports to the Mayor or Common Council or some other body, unless explicitly empowered otherwise. Any Sub-unit called task force, work group or similar name is a Committee.
I didn’t hear the Mayor raising any objections at that time.
You’ve probably noticed that some committees have switched to commissions and some commissions have changed to committees, to reflect the above. Makes it easy to identify who might be impacted by this power grab. Anyways, if the Mayor wants to eliminate all decisions made by “handful(s) of non-elected people” he will have to review all these commissions and boards.
ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW BOARD
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION COMMISSION
BUILDING CODE, FIRE CODE, CONVEYANCE CODE AND LICENSING APPEALS, BOARD OF
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY
DISABILITIES, COMMISSION ON PEOPLE WITH
DISABLED PARKING ENFORCEMENT ASSISTANCE COUNCIL
EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION
ESTIMATES, BOARD OF
ETHICS BOARD
HEALTH BOARD OF FOR MADISON AND DANE COUNTY
HUMANITARIAN AWARD COMMISSION, REVEREND DOCTOR MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
LANDMARKS COMMISSION
MADISON ARTS COMMISSION
MADISON DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARD
MONONA TERRACE COMMUNITY AND CONVENTION CENTER BOARD
PARK COMMISSIONERS, BOARD OF
PARKING COUNCIL FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
PEDESTRIAN/BICYCLE/MOTOR VEHICLE COMMISSION
PERSONNEL BOARD
PLAN COMMISSION
POLICE AND FIRE COMMISSION
PUBLIC WORKS, BOARD OF
REVIEW, BOARD OF
SENIOR CENTER BOARD OF DIRECTORS
STREET USE STAFF COMMISSION
TRANSIT AND PARKING COMMISSION
URBAN DESIGN COMMISSION
WATER UTILITY BOARD
WEED COMMISSIONERS
ZONING BOARD OF APPEALS
I guess we could make these all advisory and take away all their powers and the Council could start dealing with all the mundane issues that they routinely work on with very little notice. I’m sure the Council can just take on all that extra work. Of course, some of these groups get their powers from state law, that might slow the Mayor down a bit.
WHAT ABOUT THE RTA
Need I say more? Every time he says what’s in this article, as an RTA supporter, I cringe. Statements like:
That’s too much power for a commission without elected members, Cieslewicz said.
and
“The Common Council and I are accountable. If people have a problem with how we vote on a project, they can contact us. And if they don’t like the decision, they can make that point at election time.”
Can you just see the anti-RTA commercials and lit pieces now . . .
TRANSPARENT AND ACCOUNTABLE
In that same article the Mayor says:
“I’m not criticizing the commissioners,” he said. “I truly believe they’re trying to do the best with an unclear ordinance. But I think legitimate issues have been raised about transparency and accountability.”
Well, what is more transparent and accountable than the City Council passing a law during public meetings, charging a committee, which also has public meetings, to follow it. And, if there is disagreement, taking it to a public meeting of the Common Council. How is that not transparent and accountable.
What isn’t transparent and accountable is passing a law, then ignoring it when it doesn’t suit your needs and spinning that as being ok, because of factors like economic development and jobs. What the laws are there for, are to provide predictability and transparency to avoid favoritism and ad hoc decision making.
WHAT ABOUT STREAMLINING THE PROCESS
Speaking of economic development . . . whatever happened to “streamlining the development process” in the name of “economic development”? It was one of the primary issues that led to our Economic Development Planning and beefing up the committee. This is interesting to me, cuz the push had been to have less decisions come to the Common Council, but if you follow his, and Alder Skidmore’s logic . . . it means loooooonnnnggggger council meetings and more process for the developers. The exact opposite of what I thought we were trying to do.
You see, we’ve been working towards making the development process easier. Moving towards letting staff make more administrative decisions instead of having commissions vote on them. Moving towards making some more routine issues that needed full approval be conditional uses so the Plan Commission can make the decisions without going to the council.
The move to take away those powers from the Landmarks Commission flies in the face of all that work to reduce the unending whining we’ve been listening to from the development community for years. This is an about face. Makes no sense.
RESPONSE TO FACEBOOK COMMENTS
Ok, I did call the Mayor “nuts” on my twitter/facebook update yesterday. Really, I meant he had a nutty idea. Didn’t mean to name call, calm down folks. But I stand by the concept, this is a nutty idea! (See Streamlining the Process above.)
P.S. Sorry about the lack of links this morning. I may try to put them in this weekend.
