The Madison Common Council held a discussion Tuesday night to discuss a proposal that would restructure several facets of city government that Ald. David Ahrens, District 15, and Ald. Mark Clear, District 19, announced March 16.
The discussion started with Clear explaining each of the Government Reform Initiatives draft ordinances. He said Ahrens was unable to attend because he is on vacation.
The first draft ordinance would extend the council president and president pro tempore terms from one year to two. Clear said the change was proposed to allow the positions to become more familiar with the community.
The second would transfer committee appointment authority to the council president. Clear said this would allow for the appointments to be closer to constituents.
He also noted the Board of Estimates and Common Council Organizational Committee would be renamed the Finance Committee and Executive Committee, respectively, for clarity. The Finance Committee would also remove the mayor from the committee.
City Attorney Michael May said there could be a problem with having the Common Council president making alder appointments and chairing the Finance Committee because state law does not allow people to appointment themselves.
May also noted that if the Common Council president appoints all alder members of the committees, it could result in lag. Following the Common Council election, the council would have to vote for the new president at the first meeting. He said this could result in a two-week delay until the new president makes appointments.
If the Common Council president chaired the Finance Committee, the ordinance would have to explicitly say the president is automatically that chair, according to May. State law does not allow representatives to appoint themselves. Without explicitly saying the president is automatically the chair, the Common Council president would have to appoint themselves.
Ald. Rebecca Kemble, District 18, said she strongly opposed consolidating more power to the council leadership because council president and council president pro temp already have a considerable amount of responsibilities. She also noted that the council should be working on higher priority issues such as affordable housing.
Common Council Legislative Analyst Heather Allen also gave a presentation on comparable governance models. The presentation highlighted the governmental structures of cities across the state and nation. She started by quoting James Madison.
“The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived,” Allen read.
She went on to note that Racine, Green Bay, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Wausau and Waukesha have finance committees that do not include the mayor. She did not know if there was a lag problem in these cities, or if the president or mayor appointed the members of those committees.
Facilitator Jeff Russell moderated the discussion to prevent repetition and keep the meeting on track. He brought a white post-it board that featured ground rules and “parking lot items,” which were topics moved to a future date. By the end of the night, seven whiteboard sheets were up and filled.
Although Mayor Paul Soglin did not speak at the meeting, he was in attendance. He released a memo Tuesday that reaffirmed his stance opposing the initiatives. The memo also stressed the need for public input and that the initiatives were drafted without any.
Soglin also announced he will propose a city resident task force next Tuesday that will examine 12 different issues related to the proposal.
The original Government Reform Initiatives proposal said they hoped to pass the initiatives by May 17, but Clear said he would be open to pushing the vote back to include feedback from alders to make the ordinances more effective.
