I'd be lying if I said I knew enough to have a strong opinion. I'm more interested in not rocking the boat too much because of the positive momentum that it only just beginning to swell in the area, I'm worried about the distractions that a process like this is likely to cause. Shame on me for not voting.
On the surface I don't like the idea of more wards and certainly not more councilmembers. It just opens us up to to potentially lesser qualified and more politically extreme candidates which does the city no favors. I've heard various arguments for the different mayor/manager-council setups but have no opinion on those yet.
A very vocal group has been pushing a change to a manager-council government and for 8-9 wards.
Funny, I'd heard absolutely nothing of this. But maybe this is why in the last few weeks I heard Clerk Swope slyly warning people against it. lol I hope there is an organized campaign to elected charter commissioners who want to close this process up as soon as possible with no major changes. A manager-council system would be horrible; I've always liked that Lansing has held against that trend. As for more wards, 4 has always been too few, IMO, if you're going to have them, but the only way I'd support 8-9 wards is if they replace the at-large seats, not in addition to them.
Anyway, just thinking on the fly, there is nothing hugely structurally wrong with how the city government is organized and I hope people in the know are organizing against any big changes. I was honestly shocked this passed, since this proposal almost always goes down in major defeat when put up. Makes sense there was some group agitating for this, then.
The only people I have seen (on the 'Politics in Lansing' fb group) expressing interest in serving have been people who lost in the council primaries and the agitators. I think it is going to be nuts. It's hard to guess what could happen with so few people interested in drafting proposals and then only 10-20% of the electorate actually voting on whatever the commission comes up with.
I should have clarified, yes what I have seen is people arguing for 8 or 9 wards, no at-large, to capture 'better representation'. From my time in Flint I think this change will more often than not lend itself to faction forming and too many resources being fought over by whichever council members develop political power, rather than allocating resources and projects by data-driven assessments.
Ahh, thinking more about it, I wouldn't mind the addition of a 5th ward seat so that we wouldn't have ties on council and because I'd like another ward seat. But that'd be more of a cosmetic concern than anything else since ties are simply failed votes. But that's kind of exactly why I wouldn't mind it, since I don't want to see any significant changes.
Actually, this would be a perfect opportunity to get ranked-choice voting codified for when/if the state ever allows it as an option for an electoral system. That is probably a major change I'd support.
Oh how I love the concept of ranked choice voting. It's one of the few ideas that might actually fix some of the government dysfunction at all levels, I hope it's given a chance. I could get behind the addition of a 5th ward to stave off ties.
Nope. The state still doesn't allow it. Ferndale has had it since the early 00's, and East Lansing passed earlier this month, too. None of this can go into effect until state law allows them to.
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On the surface I don't like the idea of more wards and certainly not more councilmembers. It just opens us up to to potentially lesser qualified and more politically extreme candidates which does the city no favors. I've heard various arguments for the different mayor/manager-council setups but have no opinion on those yet.
Funny, I'd heard absolutely nothing of this. But maybe this is why in the last few weeks I heard Clerk Swope slyly warning people against it. lol I hope there is an organized campaign to elected charter commissioners who want to close this process up as soon as possible with no major changes. A manager-council system would be horrible; I've always liked that Lansing has held against that trend. As for more wards, 4 has always been too few, IMO, if you're going to have them, but the only way I'd support 8-9 wards is if they replace the at-large seats, not in addition to them.
Anyway, just thinking on the fly, there is nothing hugely structurally wrong with how the city government is organized and I hope people in the know are organizing against any big changes. I was honestly shocked this passed, since this proposal almost always goes down in major defeat when put up. Makes sense there was some group agitating for this, then.
https://old.reddit.com/r/lansing/comments/17qqrnp/a_revision_to_lansings_city_charter_passed/
I should have clarified, yes what I have seen is people arguing for 8 or 9 wards, no at-large, to capture 'better representation'. From my time in Flint I think this change will more often than not lend itself to faction forming and too many resources being fought over by whichever council members develop political power, rather than allocating resources and projects by data-driven assessments.
Actually, this would be a perfect opportunity to get ranked-choice voting codified for when/if the state ever allows it as an option for an electoral system. That is probably a major change I'd support.