Supposedly tomorrow’s night’s common council meeting will include a vote on whether to create the charter revision committee. The reason for revising the charter would be to extend the term of mayor at the very least and common council members possibly to four years. As with most change in Norwalk, sticks in the mud are planting fast and furiously.
Chief stick in the mud is former mayor Alex Knopp who has been advising Democrats that the four year term is a bad idea. No one on that side of the aisle is asking the obvious question about the conflict inherent in someone who keeps lurking about with intentions of running for mayor yet again. There’s some political calculation going on there about toxic half life and how long hate and loathing stays in voters minds before he reveals his master strategy, but Democrats would be foolish to think that they are getting anything but self serving advice from him.
Another stick in the mud Doug Hempstead, has mayoral aspirations too. His problem is the waiting game. Should the term go to 4 years while the current Mayor is in office he’d have a long wait for another shot at running for mayor.
Meanwhile council members don’t want to be left behind on a recommendation of four year terms, and so there’s all sorts of positions on the merits of how the elections would actually work. Considering that neither political party can find enough candidates on a two year basis, you’d think that having four year terms would make things easier.
They could look at the federal level and say Mayor and at-large council and BOE candidates are all 4 year terms and in-district BOE and council candidates are 2 year terms. It seems to work for Congress and the executive branch okay.
Meanwhile, no one apparently, will spend much time talking about the long term here. Norwalk has not been known for its long term strategic thinking, even when various people have laid claims to thinking exclusively long term and strategic. A perfect example is how this years operating budget is being handled. Decisions are being made totally on short term “this year” thinking instead of a hard look at how the regional economy is going to affect Norwalk’s ability to grow revenues should the financial markets continue long term panic.
If the talk here in Norwalk is still on the sub-prime meltdown, then someone is not paying attention to the real problems in economy. Oil prices, can we say $125/barrel this summer, a non functioning bond market, and commercial credit essentially frozen will lead to the very real operational price hikes that we’ve already been seeing. Think asphalt, cement, electricity and food prices spiraling. This translates into potential across the board increases for all sorts of line items that will be impacted.
Political leaders need to stop worrying about elections and start worrying about the business of governing. While it may be expedient to think that having elections every two years is some sort of report card on the job the elected are doing, I’d argue it has been one of the main contributing factors for a failure to execute long term revenue policy. For some reason, when it comes to spending tax money, long term spending manages to squeak through. But without accountability. Witness the school renovation plan, started in 2000, and still underway with huge cost over runs, half the schools untouched by renovation and much finger pointing as to who dropped teh ball.
Four year terms for the mayor and the council is the right thing to do. Let’s hope that the political election thinking takes a backseat to what should be a lively discussion about the real powers and operating functions of our form of government.
