Equal law for all

We talk a lot, and always about the same stuff. So a couple of days ago, in the Library Community Room, The Saratoga Citizen retreaded the road to change towards a different kind of City Government.

Saratoga Springs, for those who have lived on Mars for the last generation, adopted way back when a form of civic organization that embodies two functions into its elected officials: they are supposed both to manage and to legislate. A Board of five people handles the functions that are considered essential to the good administration of the “res publica”, the matters of the public: Finance (tax collection, bookkeeping, and budgets), Public Works (everything from snow removal to road maintenance), Public Safety (keeping the populace in line and providing fire protection), and Accounts (mostly assessing the taxes on the stock of houses within the city boundaries and city clerk duties). Then, of course, there is the Mayor, to head up City planning, human resources, legal matters, and, of course, cut ribbons..

These five people are supposed to be part-timers, and are paid as such (today they receive the princely sum of $14,000 per year, $7.00 an hour, calculated on 2,000 hours per year). Each is supposed to administer her/his area of responsibility, and also establish the rules by which this administration runs: they are both administrators and legislators.

Therefore we have five co-equal votes on the City Council. It is customary to keep any deliberative body to an uneven number of votes, to prevent ties.

I am no expert on Municipal administration, and I have not memorized the City Charter, but a few problems jump out of this arrangement:

1- Each ship on its own bottom, as they like to say at Harvard, means that each department determines the level of employment and of expenditures, and then sets out to fight for the share of funds available according to its own lights and goals. There is no unified fiscal authority that establishes overall priorities, and/or oversees the administration of funds. By definition this hampers long-term planning and sets up a scenario similar to a food fight in the school cafeteria.

2- Each commissioner will be under the temptation to propose municipal legislation that furthers his/her pet projects, regardless of the broader interests of the community. Personal rivalries between the Commissioners tend to result in stalemates, inaction, or, worse, shouting matches.

3- Democracy is not served, despite loud protestations by the Commissioners: “Any taxpayer (they say) can pick up the phone and talk to me about his/her concerns. No need of procedures or intermediaries.” But what happens when the citizen steps into one of those food-fights, or the Commissioner, for whatever reason, dislikes the caller? There is no recourse, no legal procedure short of suing the City, for getting redress. The principle of equal law for all is denied.

When we talk of open, transparent government we are not talking of a theoretical construct to run up the mast, admire and forget. Each citizen is entitled to know where to address his wishes or complaints, to be assured that his words, petitions and actions will be subject to the same constraints and administrative steps as everybody else’s. And to know that his suit will be in full view at all times, at every turn. Above all the reasons for the denial of his aspirations will be clear, pre-established and uniformly applied, ensuring the orderly transformation of the particular aspiration into the common good.

No rule of law is possible without the consent, or at least acquiescence, of the governed. Only transparency will ensure respect of the laws that we are expected to obey every day of our lives.