Mark Chapman is NancyOnNorwalk’s editor and a veteran of news organizations covering strong mayors, weak mayors, city managers and selectmen.
OK, now I see what the Republicans were talking about two years ago when they pretty much pooh-poohed the idea of charter reform.
I didn’t understand it when they said opening the charter would be downright dangerous, that everyone would want to toss their own ingredients into the soup, and Norwalk would wind up with a pot of sludge.
Or, as we see now, the soup has been tossed out the window.
The city simply can’t agree on anything, several people told us, so let’s not just do something, let’s stand there.
Some people – more than two, less than 12 – said the remarks in our comment section played a role in walking away from this really, really hard job.
Seriously?
If we took our comments seriously, we would be laying in supplies for the coming apocalypse. We would be basing our business and our lives on the way things were done 30 years ago, because, gosh darn it, it was better then.
In 2013, the GOP scoffed at charter reform, and most of the GOP Council candidates issued boilerplate responses to what they saw as a horribly slanted questionnaire. I took them to task for that, and I think it would have been instructive to the voters if the party hadn’t gone all puppet master and instead let the candidates craft their own responses.
I only mention this because I was stunned to see the charter reform panel the LWV put together: A town manager, a very intelligent, highly articulate town manager booster (full disclosure: I might well be leaning that way), the two elected voter registrars and, well, Peter Berman. Mr. Berman’s solution to all that ails Norwalk is to have an elected board of finance to make informed decisions about the budget.
Elected body! Yes! Like the Board of Education and the Common Council. Now, let’s see, will the people be elected by district as fairness would dictate, or would they be all at-large positions to reduce the chance some people – you know, like frequent Mr. Berman targets Greg Burnett and Ed Camacho – would get elected. Then again, Mr. Berman’s all-time favorite target, Shirley Mosby, was elected the to the BOE as an at-large candidate with the second highest vote total …
The whole idea here was to extend the terms of the mayor and Council, and give the Council some extra cash so maybe they would all, you know, show up and take their positions seriously
Why lengthen the mayor’s term? Because, as I have written more than once, the most important thing the mayor does is appoint people to commissions and boards. And the way things stack up now, with a two-year term, a new mayor has to wait sometimes until his final six months until appointments expire. Mayor Harry Rilling has basically been working with Richard Moccia’s government with a few tweaks. To use one of a District E Councilman’s favorite words, it’s criminal.
This entire situation would be laughable it wasn’t so important. Here we have a Democratic mayor, the heads of both major political parties and the conservative Chamber of Commerce all in agreement, and the city STILL can’t get anything done. And the LWV panel neglected to include any of the respected city leaders with a point of view that would include fixing things for now rather than blowing everything up, which might be an answer for the future.
Don’t hold your breath.
So what it all comes down to is Norwalk doesn’t know how to go about getting input, selling its idea to the voters and getting it on the ballot. Norwalk is really good at just being Norwalk, and doing things like they’ve always been done.
I have a charter change suggestion: Let’s change the city’s name. I think Stasis would be appropriate.
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