The struggle within

It’s been a week since Salisbury City Council approved a City Charter amendment to place the city attorney under the supervision of the council rather than under the mayor. That vote stemmed from a June incident when Mayor Jim Ireton advised the city attorney not to attend a closed session of City Council because insufficient public notice was given beforehand. The charter amendment was approved by a group of three Council members who have become the new majority in a run of 3-2 votes; interestingly enough all three hail from the same Camden neighborhood.

In response, Council member Laura Mitchell, one of the two who voted against the change, has initiated a petition drive which would take this newly-enacted power of City Council and subject it to a referendum next year. On Facebook she stated that, “I take issue with the manner in which this resolution was handled, the pretense under which it was advanced, and most importantly the substance of the amendment.” While Mitchell says she has “overwhelming support,” she faces an uphill struggle as the threshold for bringing the issue to the ballot requires a larger percentage of voters to sign than the number who bothered to show up and cast their ballots earlier this year.

But the way I look at the issue is if you consider the Mayor’s job is to be the executive branch and the Council’s to be the legislative, then it seems like an abuse of power by Council to have adopted this charter change. If you think of this on a national level, while it’s the Senate’s job to advise and provide consent to the President on the selection of Cabinet members, judges, and others within the purview of the Executive branch, they can’t remove the person without just cause through an impeachment process. This Salisbury City Council would presume to be such a judge and jury.

And there is a bit of discussion going around that Mayor Ireton needs to be cut down to size because he may have the audacity to redistrict the city in such a way that there are four Council districts, with one at-large member serving as Council president. Even if that would be the case, though, there’s no guarantee that it would necessarily dilute Camden’s power if the lines were drawn in just the right manner to split the neighborhood into two districts while the third member runs at-large (and has the added bonus of being Council president.)

To be quite honest, there’s not a whole heckuva lot I agree with Jim Ireton on – it’s unfortunate that we didn’t elect a different mayor in 2009 because help hasn’t been on the way. But in this case he’s correct in seeing this as part of a transition to a “strong council president” type of government. That’s rather odd since it wasn’t so many years ago the remainder of the county chose to entrust a strong executive with the keys to the county’s treasury.

So if you see an opportunity to sign the petition to bring this to referendum, please do so. I even crossed party lines to sign since they had a copy at the Democratic tent over the weekend. I guess I make this a bipartisan effort. Otherwise, Laura would be the contact as she’s spearheading the effort.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.

3 thoughts on “The struggle within”

  1. I realize that you don’t follow city policy or politics very closely, but you need to be careful before allowing yourself to be drawn in on this one.

    Your claim that this is an abuse of power is flawed. Unlike Ireton, who violated the charter by denying council access to the city attorney, the council followed the charter down the line.

    Your statement that Ireton “advised” Wilber not to attend the June meeting is ridiculous. Wilber was ORDERED not to attend. I realize that you are reporting what you have been told, but it sounds like you’re being used by Laura Mitchell on this.

    You also note that the reason Ireton gave for pulling Wilber from the meeting was because of a notice requirement. Well, that’s ONE reason Ireton gave. It depends on which day you talk to Jimmy. On other occasions he has claimed that the meeting didn’t suit his schedule. On others it was because his other department heads couldn’t attend.

    Here’s the problem. Ireton wasn’t invited. His other department heads weren’t requested. Ireton doesn’t have the authority to dictate when the council will meet; and if he has a problem with the notice requirement he can file a complaint with the Open Meetings Board like any other citizen.

    Now… Assuming that the charter change takes affect, IF the council behaves towards Ireton (denying him access to counsel) as he behaved towards them, then we can all criticize the council. Until then, you should be a little more careful who you draw “facts” from. I know you wouldn’t deliberately mis-report, so I’m assuming that you source either has their own agenda or they are ignorant.

  2. I’ll grant you I have a limited take on this, since I talked to Laura and read the Daily Times story.

    But when it’s a charter change of this magnitude being considered, it seems that perhaps it would be a good idea to allow the voters to decide. And obviously Laura has a severe handicap in getting the signatures required, although she did complain about voter rolls being inflated (odd coming from a Democrat, isn’t it?) yet I don’t think that’s the case in any significant amount.

    What I’ve been told from asking around, though, is that there may be more of these types of amendments in the offing. Since there’s no partisan fight in this battle (all six involved are Democrats) it’s more about which special interest will run the city: the Camden crew or Jim Ireton.

    Help won’t be on the way until 2013.

  3. The issue here that Mr. Harrison and others miss is the fact that it is not about whom the City Solicitor answers to, it is about the process.

    Again, the City Council (with a different majority) has abused the process with which to make amendments to the City Charter because they have a problem with the Mayor. For years Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen have complained about the way things were done. Now that they are in power they conduct themselves in the same manner.

    Many are disappointed in the fact that they have become what they have always said they opposed, power hungry and deceptive. They have created legislation in the dark of night without the sunshine of public scrutiny and input.

    The process which this was brought forward so quickly smells of a violation of the Open Meetings Act. How could legislation be crafted so quickly? Because it was already written and that part of the work session was scripted so that they could say it was discussed at a work session.

    Trickery, deception and hypocrisy is the motto of this City Council Majority of Terry Cohen, Debbie Campbell and Tim Spies.

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