In a Pyrrhic victory for the Camden crew on Salisbury City Council, fellow Council member Laura Mitchell glumly announced she had fallen short of the required number of signatures needed to place the issue of their most recent City Charter change on the ballot. While she collected 2,327 signatures it was well short of her goal of 3,000 and the required 20 percent of registered city voters. Ironically, though, more voters signed the petition than voted in the election which placed Mitchell on City Council.
It seems to me, though, that there were valid reasons for bringing this question to a referendum. As I read the measure, it placed City Council in a position where they would be usurping some of the power reserved to the city’s executive. I’ll grant that Jim Ireton and I don’t see eye-to-eye very often and it’s my hope that a strong conservative candidate emerges for the next mayoral election in the spring of 2013. But in this case I think he was correct in opposing this change, since it essentially serves to weaken what was intended as a strong executive form of government similar to that of Wicomico County, the State of Maryland, and our very nation. In each instance, positions under the executive branch are selected by the executive but require the advice and consent of the legislative branch.