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Sunday, November 30, 2008
Reorganizing City Govrnment: Time to Get a Mayor for Pueblo
Reasons why the Pueblo City Government should be changed from a Council/City Manager to a Mayor form of government.
Testimony to Pueblo City Council
Reorganizing City Government:
Time to Get a Mayor for Pueblo
November 24, 2008
Madame President Barbara Vidmar and Distinguished Council Members,
My name is Dr. Alvin Rivera. My topic is “Reorganizing City Government.” I want to offer suggestions concerning why it is necessary to entertain the idea of having a mayor of Pueblo and what you can do to help.
A few years ago I made a suggestion to many people in Pueblo about what city government could do to be improved. Then, I asked if they believed a Pueblo Mayor was a good idea? The answer was yes, but the timing was bad. Well, with a new day in Pueblo, and in the nation, I believe it is just the “change” Pueblo may need to return the city government back to the people. You may recall I discussed this topic with you a couple years ago.
Since the timing has improved, the first question to ask in earnest is: “Why is it necessary to change the city manager type government?”
Without getting into the all the complexities of the different types of government, this is what our city manager type government has yielded:
1) There is an increased number of Executive Sessions outside of the public view compared with previous years. This is occurring in spite of public concerns to make government more transparent. Pueblo city government is on the wrong page and moving in the wrong direction. There is no leadership coming out of the City Council or the City Manager’s office to change the status quo;
2) The city government priorities and its budgets are not addressing the real needs of the public and the results have been under-staffing in many city departments including human resources, police and fire; and
3) There is a lack of accountability and indifference of elected officials to be responsive to the will of the public. The best evidence of this is the apparent uniform decision of the council to remove the “Public Forum” from the television audience, and it was another council decision that was made behind closed doors and announced to the public without public input or comment. Moreover, in this past election the fact that the public voted by a 59% to 41%, a 19% point landslide victory in favor to return the TV cameras to cover the Public Forum is some indication of how out of touch this council is from the will of the public. Likewise, the council gave its blessing to the third failure of the 2B initiative to expand the Pueblo Convention Center against the will of the public. It lost by a 12% vote, another large margin of victory for the public by any political definition.
Once again, this council is missing the boat when it comes to understanding the will of the public.
Therefore, I am going forth to explore what is necessary to establish a mayor type city government. I hope I can enlist your cooperation, and if not, then I will move forward anyway. To use a metaphor, please understand this is not about moving chairs around on the Titanic, it is about changing from a passenger ship to a battleship!
We are at a good time when “real change” is important, at all levels of government, and we need to move expediently to make government more responsive. With a mayor type government I believe this will force our elected officials to be more responsive, establish better accountability and force a more transparent government for ALL THE PEOPLE OF PUEBLO.
I will conclude this testimony with a quotation from the 1982 movie, “The Verdict,” with the Academy Award winning actor Paul Newman. His words best capture the state of government today. In his role as a Defense Attorney, in his closing statement to the jury, he said in part:
So much of the time we are lost.
We say, … please God tell us what is right.
Tell us what is true.
There is no justice.
The rich win.
The poor are powerless.
We become tired of hearing people lie.
And after a time, we become dead…a little dead.
We think of ourselves, as victims …
And we become victims.
We become, … we become weak.
We doubt ourselves.
We doubt our beliefs.
We doubt our institutions.
And we doubt the law.
Thank you. Alvin Rivera, 566-0069
Next entry: Pueblo Citizens for Positive Change(PCPC) meeting Previous entry: Election Outcome: City Council Policies and Oversight