The only truly dead are those who have been forgotten. – Jewish Saying

I leave today to bury an old friend. A childhood friend. 

A few years ago I lost my childhood golfing buddy. Now it’s my baseball buddy.

At this rate who is going to remember me?

The following AP story just kind of leaves you wanting more information. (I searched but couldn’t find much else.)

BURLINGTON, Vt. — The Burlington City Council has voted to suspend the city’s chief administrative officer amid an ongoing dispute about the city-owned telecommunications provider, but Mayor Bob Kiss says he won’t do it.

In an 8-6 vote early Tuesday, the council passed a resolution calling for Jonathan Leopold to be put on administrative leave, with pay.

Leopold has been under fire amid revelations that Burlington Telecom, which provides telephone, cable and Internet, borrowed $17 million from the city but didn’t pay it back within 60 days, as required by its state license.

Kiss, who says he’s the only person who can suspend a department head, said Tuesday that Leopold’s suspension isn’t warranted and that it’s not in the best interests of the city. He won’t heed the resolution.

 Oh how I wish I could be at their next meeting!

I have a feeling it could be a good one.

I just checked airplane ticket prices … I can’t go for sure.

I attended a County Comprehensive Planning Committee yesterday. The committee was reviewing the boring narrative of one of the chapters. It was necessary work that needed to be done. The committee was mainly reviewing the information for accuracy and clarity.

Many times on a committee such as this there is one person who is also a wordsmith.  This time it was a retired teacher. They have a tough job. They are itching to correct every bad comma and semicolon but don’t want to be a pain in the butt about it.

I want to take this time to honor all those wordsmiths who do the job that needs to be done in public documents. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.

You did it well Waldo. You did it well.

I recently came across an article I wrote three years ago. It is worth repeating…

Local Government Apathy – The Only Known Cure is Involvement

This is a discussion for the Intergovernmental Relations Class. 

The City of Kinston, NC voted last year in a referendum to go the way of non-partisan elections. They no longer want party labels in their local elections.  However, due to a clause in the Voters Right Act of 1965 Kinston needs federal approval before making any changes to their local elections. They were denied by the Justice Department of making this change.  Why?

The Justice Department’s ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their “candidates of choice” – identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.

The department ruled that white voters in Kinston will vote for blacks only if they are Democrats and that therefore the city cannot get rid of party affiliations for local elections because that would violate black voters’ right to elect the candidates they want.

So, we have an unelected bureaucrat in Washington, DC overturning a valid local referendum for the above stated reasons.  (Full background article here.) If I go any further in my description of this issue I am certain to be labeled a racist by someone.

 Comments are always welcome prior to class.

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” — Greek philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.)

Plato knew what he was talking about. This is why the new ebook, Why Your City Council Makes Dumb Decisions And What You Can Do About It, was written. I wanted to bring participation in politics down to the basics. Anyone can follow my instructions and begin to have influence in their local government. From there … anything is possible!

Download Here.

There has been a couple of glitches with the new website. The IT Department is working on them. Until those are worked out, posts will be short and few.

In the mean time a bug has been making the rounds throughout the Academy. Hasn’t been a good week.

Which is better, aldermen elected by wards, at large or a combination of both? This issue was discussed by the Academy’s Philosophy Class. The issue specifically dealt with the City of New Brunswick.

NEW BRUNSWICK — Call it the $100,000 question.

That’s the amount New Brunswick has spent in legal fees over the past year and a half to unsuccessfully block a group of residents from getting a question on the November ballot, one that asks whether to divide the city into wards for city council elections.

Now the city has tapped out its legal options and the question will be put to voters Nov. 3.

Critics call the city’s legal tactics a waste of taxpayer money. City officials say they’re just following the law. Political experts disagree on whether the city’s fight is over the top.

Since last fall, the city has lost three rounds of lawsuits with Empower Our Neighborhoods, or EON, involving petitions of residents’ signatures filed to the city.

“They’re fighting the members of the community they’re supposed to represent,” said Martin Perez, director of Coalition For Democracy, an umbrella group formed last month representing diverse city groups including EON.

Perez characterized the city’s legal battle as “incredible, callous and a waste of taxpayer money.”

Currently, all five of New Brunswick’s council members are elected at-large. The ballot question will ask whether the council should be expanded to nine members, with six elected by ward and three elected at-large. Voters were posed that exact question once before, in 1986, when a local group in New Brunswick put the initiative on the ballot, but voters rejected it, 3,765 to 2,510.

This is a philosophical question where there is no right or wrong answer. Over the long run it makes no difference if a city council is divided by wards or all/some of the members are elected at large.  It is believed that by changing from one system to another it will increase the number of citizens running for those positions.

What normally happens is that for the first election cycle or two there is an increase in number of city council candidates. Then the newness wears off and soon the city is back to the same apathetic state it was prior to the change. 

Sigh …

In addition to the new blog design and free ebook the is also a new Academy of Local Politics Store.

In the store you can find shirts and stuff with the new Academy of Local Politics logo.

Just in time for the Slamming Gavels Homecoming game!

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was having a new blog site designed. Well, here it is. I hope you like it. I sure do.

You will notice on the right sidebar, a box which will take you to my new ebook  WHY YOUR CITY COUNCIL MAKES DUMB DECISIONS … AND WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. It’s free! There is no reason not for anyone to download and read it. Pass it on to friends and family. Post a link on your website or blog.

If prior to reading this ebook you wish to nominate me for the Nobel Prize for Literature you can find that nomination procedure here. 

After reading,  any and all comments would be appreciated.