Once again it is almost time to vote for City of Tulsa Charter Changes. One of the changes that Tulsans will consider will create staggered three-year-council terms. I am opposed to this charter change, and over the course of the next two or three posts, I will be encouraging Tulsans to vote against it.
This charter change affects the terms of office for Tulsa City Councilors in a few basic ways:
Firstly, it increases the term to three years as opposed to the 2 years it has been since 1990.
Secondly, it staggers the elections for the 9 council seats so that every year there will be 3 seats up for grabs. It would group districts 1, 4 and 7 in one group, 2, 5, and 8 in the next, and 3, 6, and 9 in the last group.
Thirdly, and probably the most confusing of the consequences, deals with the initial terms of these groups. In order to stagger these groups successfully, the first election will set up terms of 1, 2, and 3 years. For example, I live in district 7 so if this passes, my councilor will have a 1 year term, then one year later I will vote for my councilor again, but this time for a 3 year term.
Are you still with me? Good, on to my first major problem with this charter change, the staggering. What is the purpose of this staggering? Presumably it is to protect you from yourself. Under the current system, all the seats are up for grabs at the same time. Heaven forbid if the silly electorate tossed out the entire council in favor of freshmen councilors. If we were inclined to be foolish enough to toss the entire council out on their collective…seats…there would be no one left that had any experience. Wouldn’t that just be a travesty? This staggering keeps us from taking such drastic and stupid action. It protects the integrity and continuity of the council.
At least I presume that is their thinking. The hubris required to come up with this plan is astonishing. It does not protect us from ourselves, what it really does is protect the council. It makes them freer to take positions that are contrary to the will of the people, with only a 1 in 3 chance of incurring the immediate wrath of the citizens of Tulsa.
Regardless of how you feel about protecting the integrity and continuity of the council, a brief look at history shows us that this change is unnecessary. It seems to ignore how Tulsans have historically voted for their councilors. Except for the very first Tulsa City Council way back in 1990, every subsequent council has enjoyed a core group of senior counselors with prior experience.
Taking the past three councils as examples proves my point. The current council only has two freshman councilors (Bynum and Gomez). It has three sophomore councilors (Westcott, Eagleton, and Troyer), and the rest have served three or more terms in office! (Patrick, Henderson, Martinson, and Christiansen) Assuming that these councilors serve the rest of their term, when it comes time to vote on this charter change, our current council will have over 41 years of combined experience!
This council is by no means an anomaly; the previous council had two sophomore councilors, two with three more terms and over 30 years of combined experience
The council before that? 42 years of combined experience and only three freshman councilors.
I could go on, but I won’t; you can see the data for yourself by downloading this MS access Database I created to help with my research. I have a few other problems with this change, but I’ll get to them in another post.
The bottom line, that this change is not necessary. If it aint’t broke? You got it…don’t fix it.
Read part 2.
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