Derby voters should vote no on election day, November 3, 2020 for all of the proposed charter revisions.
There is nothing to gain by Derby having a full-time mayor. It is not a coincidence that the proposed charter revision does not define how full time will be measured. In fact, on March 23, 2017, the Derby Board of Aldermen, with little or no discussion, passed a resolution that exempted all Derby elected, compensated, officials from submitting timesheets. No elected full time Derby official is accountable to anyone for their presence at work in any place or at any time. Moreover, nothing in the proposed charter revision prevents full time officials from attending to their own personal, privately held businesses during traditional city hall hours or being at another place of employment during retail city hall hours. You won’t even know they are gone. They are often absent from city hall, have overstaffed their offices without justification, and attend their own private businesses all the while being paid full time with heath care, vacation time and sick time. The proposed charter change intentionally is silent as to duty hours, places where the duties must be performed or any requirement for timesheets. The mayor would be accountable to no one for his hours of work since the measure of hours worked is undefined and there is no timesheet or record of hours required.
Elected officials have a privileged standing in a democracy. Absent a crime, there is nothing anyone can do when they neglect their duties. Does anyone recall the 2017 July 4th holiday when New Jersey Governor Chis Christy closed the beaches in a budget dispute? Do you also recall that he and his family defiantly sat on an empty beach that was closed to the public by his order while figuratively thumbing his nose at the residents of New Jersey? Giving the mayor a four-year term risks subjecting the residents of Derby to that kind of unacceptable behavior with no recourse. Four years is a long time to wait when a city is making no material progress. Candidates for mayor of Derby should run for office every two years and stand on their record and articulate what they propose for the following two years.
Finally, the Derby Board of Apportionment and Taxation is a valuable body of dedicated, volunteer elected officials who provide essential checks and balances to the operation of the city. The current charter calls for no less than a 6/4 balance of board members between the two major parties. Unlike the Board of Aldermen, the Board of Apportionment and Taxation cannot be heavily weighted toward one or the other of the two major parties. Dismissing that body as inferior to the Board of Alderman is a merely an attempt to strip the only checks and balances the City of Derby has against any party that has the fortune of dominating the Board of Aldermen seats.
The writer, an Orange resident, is the former Derby Finance Director.
