A Supreme Concern

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I only recently found out that recordings of the Charter Review Commission are available online. In fact, I discovered this quite by accident after viewing the PSA for tomorrow night's public hearing (and the inclusion of a questionnaire in the city's census.)

For the record, go here for the entire series.

The Feb. 4 meeting I stumbled on inlcuded included an interesting nugget presented by commission members Bruce Menin and Shelia Mullins. Just how could the Supreme Court's recent overturning of the ban on political contributions by corporations impact local politics? (Note: This conversation starts around 36 minutes in and accounts for only five minutes in an hour-long meeting.)

Menin, recalling his research of so-called "citizen safeguards" (think recall elections), says "stories are beginning to appear on the radar screen that corporations that want to do business in community are investing politically, not in infrastructure, but investing politically and moving people into office that are predisposed to decisions that are going to benefit the corporation."

The concern--as remote as it may be--is that such a thing could happen in Newburyport, a well-heeled individual could help initiate a recall election and insert a friendlier force in the office at the corner of Green and Pleasant Streets. (Steve Karp would be the obvious example of such a potential force, but no specific names ever came up in the short discussion, which accounted for roughly five minutes in the hour-long meeting.)

Commission member Shelia Mullins offered a hypothetical situation or two: "There is a major player, a developer, in town [again, no names were mentioned] who wants to do a big project that the citizens are not real keen on." Or, Mullins offered as another possibility, a union or any other type of entity that "wants to do a project that citizens are very much against ... what's to stop them from--I'll use a funny phrase--buying the election one way or another?"

The topic didn't generate much feedback from other commission members. Hugh Kelleher interjected for a moment, saying that commission members really couldn't do anything to counter the Supreme Court ruling, a point neither Mullins nor Menin disputed. But they asked that commission members just keep potential abuses in mind while exploring new ideas for the charter.

"Looking at it here in Newburyport there is nothing to stop potentially that kind of scenario from happening," Mullins says. "The point Bruce was trying to make is when you are looking at the things you are looking at in each of your subcommittees, tuck that piece of information in the back of your mind and use that as the devil's advocate in your thought process. It doesn't mean it's going to happen but, we're on an earthquake fault line, that's not likely to happen but we are overdue for one and it could potentially happen."

This is an interesting discussion given the current landscape of the city. Again, Karp's name never came up at the meeting, but it sure lingered over our last mayoral election. Some wondered if Karp and other business owners downtown asserted too much influence over the past mayoral election. James Shanley got the worst of it, unfairly in my book, after the Daily News article detailed how much support he'd received from business interests in town. (The irony of course is Mayor Holaday's gave her first state of the city address to the Chamber of Commerce. I guess the business community can listen but not participate.)

I'm guessing a similar knee jerk response would help thwart any attempts by a major business holder to buy an election, so I'm not certain what sort of safeguards could or should be in place as additional protections.

But if we're really concerned about a unscrupulous mayor entering office, perhaps the commission can entertain the idea of decentralizing the power of appointment.

At present, the mayor nominates and city council confirms citizens to sit on influential city bodies, such as the board of health, ZBA and planning board. Rather than have all appointments made by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council, I'd like to see a member or two from each panel be elected directly from the people.

I suggested this same idea last year. I'll leave it to the commissioners to determine whether this is an idea that should and even could be implemented. But it seems to me that if we're that fearful of the power a mayor might wield that we as city residents should accept more responsibility for assigning people to important town boards.

I concede such an arrangement potentially could open up the boards to same concerns of an election being purchased by an influential power broker. But I also think an regular election for these posts would shine some light on the boards that hold a great deal of power in this city but really only answer to one person--the Mayor.


p.s. I'll do a better job covering these meetings now that I know they're online.