Editor’s note: Derby voters head to the polls Nov. 8 to answer two charter revision questions. Click here for the Charter Revision Commission report. Click here for the explanatory text for question 1. Question 2 asks whether the “dual office holding” section of the charter should be deleted.
On Election Day, Derby residents will be asked to vote on 2 questions as they relate to the City Charter.
For the sake of this letter, I will focus on question no. 2.
Question no. 2 centers around the dual office holding provision in the charter.
As it currently stands, City employees who wish to serve the City in a volunteer capacity by serving on a Board or Commission must publicly disclose such conflict by soliciting and ultimately securing a waiver to serve from the Board of Aldermen.
This waiver is only granted by unanimous consent. It is a very open and transparent process.
It is my belief that Derby residents should vote no to question no. 2. I understand and respect the effort and work that the Charter Revision Committee put into the potential revisions.
I also understand the backdrop in which they came to amend question no. 2. The theory that City employees should be able to serve and contribute as a volunteer is understandable as is the concern that a single Alderman should not be able block the will of the electorate.
My concern, however, is that by removing the clause in its entirety, we weaken the theory behind the rule far too much.
Unfortunately, being a City employee and a volunteer on a Board and Commission does place the volunteer in a position where they will from time to time have a conflict of interest.
They will be asked to vote on items affecting the rules, salary, budget, etc. of their employer; whichever agency they may work for.
Currently, as it stands now, these conflicts are announced and made public when said volunteer appears before the Board of Aldermen to secure the waiver they need to serve.
Everyone is made aware of the potential conflicts of interest and it is all very public and very transparent.
By eliminating the need for a waiver, these potential conflicts of interest are clearly not as transparent as they had once been.
It had been this level of transparency that set us apart from other communities.
One only needs to look at Bridgeport where many Council members are also City employees and the issues that this has created when allowed to go unchecked.
While my own preference is to leave the Charter as is on this point, for those who feel that City employees should be able to serve the City in a volunteer capacity and that unanimous consent is too strict a standard, I believe the better way to address that issue is to require a majority vote of the Board of Aldermen when City employees who wish to volunteer appear before the Board to secure their waiver.
This critical step continues the time honored tradition of full disclosure and transparency when it comes to announcing potential conflicts of interest.
This also addresses the concerns of those who feel a single Aldermen shouldn’t wield too much power when it comes to the waiver process.
I believe that if we as a City and a community endeavor to have best in class standards, then question 2 as it currently reads should not be enacted and requires additional consideration.
As such, I believe that the citizens of the City of Derby should vote NO on question 2.
Jim Gildea
DERBY
