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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us August 13, 2005 City Charter Review 2 groups differ on revisions By Vickie Aldous Ashland Daily Tidings Sticking Points Members of the citizen-formed Ashland Constitution Dialogue so far have developed a number of recommendations for the Ashland City Charter, including: • A preamble that names openness and transparency, advancement of the common good, protection of the commons, high citizen involvement, limited government based on checks and balances, accountability and honesty, and integrity as the core values guiding city government. • All voting-age adults who live in Ashland, own or rent property in Ashland, own or operate a business in Ashland or do business in Ashland at least once a week can form a voting pool. Pool members can vote on any item “with a significant potential impact on the public interest.” A subgroup of the pool will prepare a report on the anticipated effects of a decision and the pool will hold informational meetings. The city will pay for the costs of report preparation, facilitated meetings and votes. The city shall consider the vote results in its deliberations. • A code of ethics for all public servants requiring them to “communicate the whole truth” and “nothing but the truth.” Public servants should say whether the information they present is based on fact or opinion. They cannot accept any gift, including meals, trips and entertainment. • The city shall not adopt Local Improvement Districts without majority support of affected property owners. Homeowners remodeling homes shall not be required to waive their right to vote on an LID. The city shall not begin projects to solve traffic safety problems until the neighborhood has tried to solve the problem through education for six months and the police department has increased enforcement for an additional six months, and those steps failed. • During public forums , citizens will not be required to state their addresses. Public servants shall not ask citizens to be brief in their comments and shall not impose a speaking time limit of less than 5 minutes. Speakers will be provided with a written description of any time-keeping system, including a description of warning lights and buzzers. Speakers’ written comments shall be included in the minutes without alteration. The official Ashland Charter Review Committee presented a list of recommendations for charter changes to the Ashland City Council on July 19, including: • The city administrator shall become a city manager and gain hiring and firing authority over city department heads. • The mayor shall vote on all issues, not just in case of a tie. • All city council candidates will run in one pool against each other, with the top three vote-getters winning office. This would replace the current positions system. • Charter language that voters set mayoral and council compensation shall be removed. Compensation should be set by city ordinance. • The city recorder, municipal judge and Ashland Parks and Recreation Commission should continue to be elected. References to the recorder and judge’s salary, and the budget allocation for the parks department, shall be removed from the charter. Salaries and the budget should be set during the annual budgeting process. • The Ashland City Band shall remain in the charter, with funding language removed. An independent group of residents has come up with its own list of potential changes to the city’s charter that is radically different from the proposals developed by the official Ashland Charter Review Committee. The two groups not only came up with different results, but members on both sides are critical of the process used by the opposite camp. When Charter Review Committee Co-Chair John Enders presented the committee’s charter change recommendations to the Ashland City Council on July 19, he urged councilors not to give much credence to the “people who speak the loudest,” referring to the alternative charter review group. “Ashland has many people who recklessly claim to speak on behalf of the ‘people,’” said Enders, who is a former editor of the Tidings. But participants in the alternative group, called the Ashland Constitution Dialogue, think they have come up with a list of charter changes that better represent community views. They see themselves not as residents who should give input to an official committee, but as active citizens who — like America’s Founding Fathers who drafted the Constitution — should talk among themselves and develop ideas on their own. “The experience of many is that the input of citizens is not really heard. In dialogue, people feel heard. That translates into empowerment,” said Joseph McCormick, one of the founders of the Ashland Constitution Dialogue. Parallel processes Then-mayor Alan DeBoer and the city council created the Charter Review Committee, which began work in July 2004. Committee members delved deeply into study of charter issues and developed reports with the pros and cons of potential changes. In January, the committee hosted a public forum on eight key issues that attracted about 75 people. That forum was followed by a series of public meetings to discuss individual topics and gather input, although attendance at those events ranged from a handful of people to a few dozen. At the better-attended meetings, residents were divided into groups and joined in round-table discussions on selected topics, with their ideas recorded on poster-sized paper to share with the other groups and charter committee members. When attendance was low enough, residents and committee members all sat together and talked. Charter committee member Don Montgomery said although attendance was disappointing at some meetings, he disagrees with some Ashland Constitution Dialogue members who said there wasn’t much opportunity for authentic community dialogue. “There was always occasion for input at our meetings and public forums,” Montgomery said. Ashland Constitution Dialogue co-founder Art Bullock attended the committee’s meetings. Each time, he gave a presentation on his group’s work to the television camera, but stayed off to the side when charter committee members were talking with residents. Bullock did not respond to phone calls or messages communicated through fellow group members from the Tidings requesting an interview for this story. For their part, members of the Ashland Constitution Dialogue began by going door-to-door and asking people to fill out a survey on a number of government issues. They also began a number of dialogue sessions at Three Rivers Restaurant and the Ashland Public Library. McCormick said the group is on hiatus during August, but during meetings, participants are instructed to listen to each other without judgment, speak from their own perspective and respectfully ask each other questions rather than engage in combative debate. McCormick and Wendell Fitzgerald, another group member, said members wanted to explore issues of concern to them. Fitzgerald said he was not satisfied with the topics available for discussion at the charter committee’s large public forum in January or subsequent issue-oriented meetings. “I thought the agenda was set by that committee. They had been at their work a long time and had identified issues of concern to them,” he said. “They wanted feedback on those.” Different proposals The Ashland Constitution Dialogue has developed a list of proposed charter changes involving different issues from those addressed by the charter committee’s recommendations. The alternative group wants to restrict the city’s ability to adopt controversial Local Improvement Districts, whereby neighbors are required to pay a portion of the costs of adding sidewalks, gutters and other infrastructure to unimproved areas. The Ashland Constitution Dialogue also has drafted ethics provisions that ban any gifts for public servants and require them to tell the “whole truth” and “nothing but the truth.” Public servants also must state whether they are speaking facts or opinions. Fitzgerald said he originally thought the requirement to speak only the truth was too difficult, but has changed his mind. “We do this kind of thing in courtrooms all the time. Requiring people to say whether they’re saying opinion or fact could be done pretty easily. I think you know when you’re speaking a fact or an opinion,” he said. But Montgomery said members of the alternative group seem to be coming from a position of mistrust of government. He said the rule could stifle public discussion, and he questioned how it could be enforced. “What if someone doesn’t know all the facts? Are we going to put them to hard labor? It’s unworkable,” he said. “It reflects the types of things this group wants that are unworkable. Who’s going to judge? Are they going to set themselves up as judges?” Oregon law establishes ethical rules for public officials, but some residents don’t believe those go far enough. Montgomery also pointed to the group’s proposal for a large voting pool to vote on any “significant issue” as unworkable and cumbersome. Residents, people who do business in Ashland and people who only own property in town but live elsewhere could vote on issues, with the results presented to the city council for consideration. Many members of the Ashland Constitution Dialogue have their own concerns about some of the recommendations that came out of the official charter committee’s work. They are leery, for example, of a recommendation to rename the city administrator the city manager and give him or her hiring and firing authority over city department heads. That authority currently rests with the city council and mayor. Under the committee’s recommendation, the council and mayor would retain ultimate authority through their ability to hire and fire the city manager, but many Ashland Constitution Dialogue members believe the move would strip power from the people, who have influence through their elected representatives. Ashland Constitution Dialogue members also said the committee’s recommendations do not address values. Members drafted a preamble that lists openness, high citizen involvement and other traits as values that should guide government. Charter committee member Hal Cloer said the committee did take input on values from residents, but decided to focus its energies on other topics. He said he suggested to other committee members that the committee work with the alternative group to develop something on values. Uncertain future The city council will be considering the committee’s recommendations and may possibly put them before voters after more public meetings. The charter changes most likely would not come before voters this November. McCormick said his group would like the council to put the Ashland Constitution Dialogue proposals before voters, but the group’s second alternative would be to launch an initiative. Cloer, who said he is possibly the most sympathetic committee member to the alternative group’s efforts, commended the group for their interest and the effort they have put forth. He said unless the city engages somehow with the Ashland Constitution Dialogue, group members could raise enough fears about the charter committee’s recommendations that voters would reject the changes. They also could build momentum for their own ideas. “I think it’s dangerous to have had the Ashland Constitution group go through a lot of work and raise a lot of concerns and to not be addressing their concerns,” Cloer said. Staff writer Vickie Aldous can be reached at 482-3456 x 3018 or [email protected]. 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