Suppose they gave a Charter vote and nobody came?
That appears to be the intent of the leaders in our fair city of Plattsburgh. Tuesday night, five entire human beings showed up to hear a presentation at Stafford Middle School on whether the city should change its form of government so that it's run by a city manager.
Sounds boring, and speaking as the former chair of the 2015 City of Plattsburgh Charter Commission, I can attest it kinda is. But it's no idle exercise.
The question is on the November ballot. 'Burghers can opt for a professional manager, as nearly half of all local American governments do, or keep the current system, in which the elected mayor oversees all government administrative functions, everything from planning to snow removal.
The depressed turnout was depressing, especially given that a similar forum the week before attracted only 11 hominids. That means a total of 16 people out of a population of 20,000 came to the forums.
Even worse? The people who should really care about this stuff, Mayor James Calnon and city council members, didn't deign to show--with the notable exception of Councilman Dale Dowdle, who attended the Oct. 19 session.
The media were equally neglectful. The Press-Republican covered the first forum--and that was it. No reporter from any outlet came to the second.
You could blame the poor attendance on general civic apathy, or Trump-Clinton fatigue, or the Cubs. But you'd be wrong.
I blame the mayor. Last year, the Charter Commission initially decided to let voters weigh in on three issues in November of 2015: Should the City Council and mayoral terms be staggered so that no more than three of the seven positions would turn over in a given election? Should the ancient Charter language be cleaned up and the document updated? And should the city change to a city manager model from the current strong mayor system?
But Mayor Calnon lobbied publicly and privately against the wording of the city-manager question, until eventually the Commission reversed itself and took the city-manager issue off the table in 2015. In return, Calnon promised to put city manager before the voters in 2016.
But for some reason, Calnon waited until late August to ask the council to put it on this year's November ballot. And he almost lost. Then, he had no plan to get the word out to the public. Former Commission Secretary Rod Sherman jumped on the grenade, and worked hard (for free) to arrange the information-packed public forums on an insanely tight timetable.
Turns out it was too tight. Nobody came. And almost nobody knows the question is even on the ballot, or that a manager wouldn't come into the job until 2021, or a hundred other facts, big and small, that would be useful to voters. The city wasted the time of two city-manager experts, one from Fairport, New York, and the other from Ossining, who drove five hours each way to deliver their knowledge to an empty room.
But there's the Internet, you say! Yes there is. And it's a big, cold, endless labyrinth. Anyone seeking information on the city website must go spelunking; the front page reveals absolutely nothing about the ballot proposition. (If you don't like online scavenger hunts, take this shortcut.)
However, the mayor is crystal clear in his reelection campaign that he doesn't want the proposal to pass. Apparently, he doesn't want anyone to know it exists, either.
An attendee at the Tuesday session wants to drum up a Vote Yes campaign for the manager idea, so the proposition could get an airing for a week or two. Better late than never, and better than nothing, and not nearly as good as it should have been.
To paraphrase Charlie Pierce, this is your democracy, Plattsburgh. Cherish it.
