There is an election on Nov. 5 in the City of the Village of Clarkston. As of Friday, Oct. 11, there was no public or otherwise obvious notice on the city website about an election or what we will be voting for. In fact, there are NO public notices at all. The election and sample ballot are in the information for the Oct. 14 council meeting but I don’t think that is what most people read or look for.
The Clarkston News does publish public notices online in the printed paper. There was a public notice in the June 5, 2019, Clarkston News for filing candidate applications, but it was only for candidates for the 4 open council seats. Nothing about the four charter amendments that are being proposed. The Clarkston News had articles about the charter changes on May 2 and May 23. There was a short article in the Aug. 15 Clarkston News which listed the four candidates and mentioned the charter amendments.
Why isn’t anyone talking about any of this? Why isn’t any information readily available from our city and elected representatives?
With four people running for four council seats, there is no reason to campaign and talk to the public. They will be elected no matter what they do. The amendments are another matter.
Proposal 1 gives an unfair advantage to an incumbent whose term of office has not expired. Since they don’t have to resign to run, they will be on the council whether they win or lose. If they win, they will then be able to select who replaces them thereby denying the public the ability to elect all their representatives until the next election. The was not brought about to provide a better government, but instead because some people abused the system in the last election and the city administration did not follow the rules. If not for some informed residents, they would have gotten away with it. Now they want us to approve changing the rules so it will be easier for those in office to stay in office in addition to letting them choose who is there with them. That’s the public’s job, not that of city employees and a few elected council members. I highly recommend you vote “no” on this proposal.
By the way, if you were thinking of filing a petition to run for city council, the filing date in the Charter no longer complies with state law. The city is not proposing to correct the charter provision for this so if you follow the charter, you will be wrong. Strange how our city leaders want to make amendments to help themselves but don’t want to help the public better understand elections.
Proposed Amendment 3 gives the city auditor more time to do the annual audit. The audit has not been done in a timely manner and in accordance with the charter for some time but instead of demanding it be done in a timely manner, they want to make it official that it doesn’t happen until after the election. That way no one knows the financial status of the city and what our city officials have done until after the election. The city council already ignores the financial reports they are provided at every meeting and rarely asks questions about how our tax dollars are spent. Now they want to legitimize making the outside review of that information happen months after anything can be done about it, and after incumbents are re-elected.
I will be voting “no” on these two issues. The other two amendments simply transfer some decisions from the mayor to the council, which is how it should have been since we have a council–manager form of government, not a mayor–council. The council has yet to establish a fair and equitable way of doing this but this is a start.
The Charter was adopted 27 years ago and has never been changed in all those years. There was only one other vote to amend it and that was to raise the tax limit to the highest possible under state law. That was defeated. Proposals 1 and 3 should be dealt with the same way.
Find out about the candidates and the issues, then vote. It is important.
Cory Johnston is a city resident and former City Council member