City fiscal watchdog John Marshall Lee, a candidate for City Council, examines the skills required to be an effective leader. One of them is to avoid conflicts of interest. From Lee:
This week I asked ten Bridgeport women and men to describe the qualities they looked for in electing the City Council. Many words were used including: honest, caring, listener, curious, integrity, committed to common good, intelligent, aware of and in touch with rich, poor and average, rich life experiences, trustworthy, and intention to represent the people. Words like integrity, intelligence and working for the good of all were heard more than once. And one person did include, “no jail time” in his list.
Personally I am running for the City Council in the 130th this year and am curious to know what folks are thinking. However, with my experience with the Bridgeport City Council I was surprised to find “unconflicted” not listed. The repetition of integrity, trustworthy, and honest likely cover the issue of people working for the City, under the supervision of ‘executive’ elected leadership while attempting to function independently as a member of the elected ‘check and balance’ legislature, our City Council.
In that regard being employed by the City and serving on the Council is prohibited by the Charter but a strange interpretation of law by the City Attorney maintains the dual behavior for four to six legislators at any given time. Of course, were Federal rules to be applied, more Council members would find their service impaired, or forced to recuse themselves on one or more matters during a term. This can be observed when the Council votes on HUD-CDBG funds for a variety of local programs. Federal standards are much broader and more restrictive regarding interest conflicts.
The City Council is called upon to vote on a wide range of matters including the authorization of budgets annually, the lowering or abatement of tax payments for some property owners for decades into the future and commitments of the City to borrow funds that become the responsibility of all taxpayers for many years to come. Is it unreasonable to ask candidates for as well as members of the City Council to declare their status as property owners of taxable property in the City of Bridgeport? Will they indicate whether all taxes are fully paid and keep the record current semiannually? And is it unreasonable to ask them to swear to the accuracy of that statement as well as to their accurate residence address where their personal vehicles are registered?
When vehicles of poor people are being booted, and properties are being foreclosed for some, does the executive have power over a Council member who is behind on taxes to work out a special arrangement that is secret and thus unfair to others in the same boat? These are simple things to request as would be the open display of stipend accounts, money the Council representatives are spending on business of their districts and provided by taxes. None of these are called for at this time. Why not? Time will tell.
I am with you all the way, JML. Godspeed! we need you now more than ever.
JML, while everything you state is crucial and important, it’s also the responsibility of a council representative to be available and accessible when a constituent requires assistance with matters requiring someone who can break through the bureaucracy. It’s sad to say too many residents don’t know who their council people are, let alone how to contact them.
Perhaps the signage in Bridgeport should feature the name of the Council person with a phone number (and remove Bill Finch’s name).
Perhaps they do not know the name for the same reason they don’t vote. Do they see the intersect in their life between tax payment and valuable City services?
The most recent Charter Reform that passed about 25 years ago created a “strong Mayor” system of governance. And Finch has removed or allowed removal of important governance structures further making the Council even weaker. Think about removal of internal auditor, failure to perform purchasing audit every three years, eliminating all Legislative support staff, ignoring Charter prescription for annual public solicitation and hearing on Capital budget, collusion of City finance people with a few Council delegates to keep financial reports incomprehensible or unreadable by Council members, etc. Why don’t you point out some of these same things with your years of experience? Why aren’t there more teachers among the CC members who have served good time, and now wish to share their expertise and understanding with others? Time will tell.
JML, I don’t know if you’re referring to me, but perhaps you’re not aware I will be a candidate for the CC in the 132nd district. I’m more than willing to share my 20 years of council experience if anyone’s interested.
I was thinking of you because I did read your hat is in the ring. But I was also thinking about Joel Gonzalez, Tom White, Mojo and others who have experience through the years. The training is limited as are the expectations of newer Council persons.
Let’s sit down soon and see what else may not be occurring now that was part of Council process when you were in office. To get to balance, there must be checks, I believe. Without credible monitoring, observing and power to communicate to people directly, the executive just keeps sucking all the air out of the system so they can do what they wish without opposition. We are close to that today. Will it continue after the election? Time will tell.
Great ideas, JML!