Should the City Charter be amended to have qualifications for City Council members?

[Bigdd]

Not sure what it would take, but do you think the City Charter should be amended to require people running for City Council to have some qualifications?

Like perhaps business experience? [[Hopefully successful business experience).

We've had insane people, council presidents that couldn't balance a checkbook or make a mortgage payment on a small townhouse with two media jobs. People who were illiterate etc.


Anyway,... yesterday I get a newsletter from the council person in my district and it mentions the 7.5% hike in water rates that had failed and later passed. This doesn't sound like much as the actual "water rate" component of a water / sewer / storm-drain bill is less than 1/3 of the total,... which means the total bill would only go up about 2% - 2.5%.

So I called to confirm and the assistant thought it was on the whole bill. Then I spoke to the council person directly and he/she had no idea. I mean it's either a blanket surcharge on the entire bill,... or a rate increase on one or more components of the bill.

This had been voted on multiple times, yet my council person apparently had no idea what he/she was voting for.

The City of Detroit is a multi- BILLION dollar a year enterprise,.. yet we have people like this making the hard decisions.

Simply being unemployed, or having sung a song 50 years ago, or being a relative of a congressman, or being illiterate, or a gay pedophile does not necessarily make one qualified to run a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise. [[well, in my opinion anyway).

Possible qualifications;

!. Be literate to at least a 12th grade level [[They need to be able to read and understand contracts that may be dozens of pages long,.. hundreds perhaps).

2. Must have successfully operated a business with at least 5 employees. [[If you can't make payroll or balance a checkbook,.. you have no place handling billions of dollars of other people's money).

3. Can either live in or own a business in Detroit. [[No need to exclude the people that can help the most,...and business owners are not only the most qualified,.. but they generally have A LOT more invested in Detroit than the average resident.)

4. ?

5. ?

What does everyone else think?

[ABetterDetroit]

I think that the buckets of chum are getting poured in the water and the lines are already set...

[Ray1936]

I think that the buckets of chum are getting poured in the water and the lines are already set...

Where's the 'like' button for this post???

[mtburb]

3. Can either live in or own a business in Detroit. [[No need to exclude the people that can help the most,...and business owners are not only the most qualified,.. but they generally have A LOT more invested in Detroit than the average resident.)

Does this also apply when a person both lives in and owns a business in Detroit, but he lives in one district and owns a business in another [[for example, John Smith lives at Evergeen and Grand River [[which is district 1) and owns a business at Michigan and Martin [[district 6))?

[Richard]

Not sure what it would take, but do you think the City Charter should be amended to require people running for City Council to have some qualifications?

Like perhaps business experience? [[Hopefully successful business experience).

We've had insane people, council presidents that couldn't balance a checkbook or make a mortgage payment on a small townhouse with two media jobs. People who were illiterate etc.


Anyway,... yesterday I get a newsletter from the council person in my district and it mentions the 7.5% hike in water rates that had failed and later passed. This doesn't sound like much as the actual "water rate" component of a water / sewer / storm-drain bill is less than 1/3 of the total,... which means the total bill would only go up about 2% - 2.5%.

So I called to confirm and the assistant thought it was on the whole bill. Then I spoke to the council person directly and he/she had no idea. I mean it's either a blanket surcharge on the entire bill,... or a rate increase on one or more components of the bill.

This had been voted on multiple times, yet my council person apparently had no idea what he/she was voting for.

The City of Detroit is a multi- BILLION dollar a year enterprise,.. yet we have people like this making the hard decisions.

Simply being unemployed, or having sung a song 50 years ago, or being a relative of a congressman, or being illiterate, or a gay pedophile does not necessarily make one qualified to run a multi-billion dollar a year enterprise. [[well, in my opinion anyway).

Possible qualifications;

!. Be literate to at least a 12th grade level [[They need to be able to read and understand contracts that may be dozens of pages long,.. hundreds perhaps).

2. Must have successfully operated a business with at least 5 employees. [[If you can't make payroll or balance a checkbook,.. you have no place handling billions of dollars of other people's money).

3. Can either live in or own a business in Detroit. [[No need to exclude the people that can help the most,...and business owners are not only the most qualified,.. but they generally have A LOT more invested in Detroit than the average resident.)

4. ?

5. ?

What does everyone else think?

Well,you were able to directly speak to your representative which is a giant leap from the past.

Should they be required to live in the district in which they chose to run?
Yes.

Should they be able to own a business in the city once they obtain office no matter what district they are in?

NO.

Should they be required to have past business experience or a level of education past kindergarten?

No.

When they campaign to run for office all they need to do is be alive and breathing,it will be the responsibility and duty of the citizen to be involved in the vetting process and ask those questions or find out the details before voting and placing them into that position.

It would be the responsibility of the campaigning person to speak to the public and through those discussions it would be pretty easy to determine the definition of a box of rocks.

In this specific case it would not matter if they understood the entire proposal because if it or when it passes it would have to be read by legal council so that would be the stop gap for a slip in pet project.

It was a public good situation that is based city wide and covers every district,is there flooding in the city of Detroit?

There have posts about the flooding and storm water infrastructure and it needs to be addressed and it appears to be or is in the process of being addressed and it needs to be paid for somehow.

To me I would have called the utility company or the county for a billing explanation,and if there is a drug house on the corner that seems to be not catching the attention of the police then I would be calling my representative.

This one is a common good thing that needed to be done and paid for nothing really to think about or debate.

Now,if your elected city council member owned a city sewer company,then yea,break out the microscope,because you have been down that road before,and why you do not want members owning or even their family members owning business in the city or even even thinking about owning a business in the city.

In your pre-election process say for instance you have somebody that owns an art gallery and is running for office,in order to do so they would have to cede control of daily operations and then it would be in the public eye/FBI to question if all of the sudden the city decides to buy 10 million in art.

[Scottathew]

You enforce your own requirements when you vote. I would be against requirements other than residency.

[EastsideAl]

You enforce your own requirements when you vote. I would be against requirements other than residency.

Exactly. You want a business person in there, then go campaign for and vote for one. If you don't like who's in there now, then work to defeat them and vote for their opponents.

But the very essence of democracy is that it's open to all, and we've spent hundreds of years working to make the process more, not less, open. No cockamamie rules.

[Hermod]

An IQ which exceeds 100?

[old guy]

An IQ which exceeds 100?

Seems a bit excessive.

[Honky Tonk]

For every private sector job in the world you have to have some kind of qualification. To drive a garbage truck, you have to have some kind of qualification. Political jobs, are the only jobs in the world where you can get in on pure bullshit. That, coupled with the inbred sports mentality in this country, has turned elections into some kind of coliseum event, and not a demonstration of leadership qualifications and skills. You can do a lot of irreversible damage in four years, create total mayhem in eight. Posts about "doing your homework on the candidate" are nice, but are only partially true, given the choices lately of a swift kick to the groin, or a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Yes, I feel there should be some kind of qualifications set for perspective candidates. I would rather have an outsider that can actually lead, than a good ol' boy that'll empty the till.

[Dan Wesson]

The problem is not with the candidates. It is with the electorate.

After all, if they vote are they not voting for their peers?

So, try to pass some pre-qualifications concerning the right to vote and see what happens.

[Dumpling]

Just a few years ago the City Charter was revised. All things having to do with the
City Council were thoroughly studied by the duly elected City Charter Revision
Commission, with feedback from the general public, with the main, heartfelt result
being that we now have councilpersons being elected mostly by districts. So the city
councilpersons are now hopefully more responsive to neighborhood concerns
than before. Shortly after the revised City Charter was approved, the council
placed several proposals on the ballot to "clarify language" in the revised City
Charter, namely

http://archive.freep.com/article/201...harter-changes

In my recollection all of the proposed charter changes were approved though I have not been
able to confirm this. [[I didn't try hard though).

[Dumpling]

So recently the City Charter was intensively scrutinized by the City Council itself,
the Revision Commission, the media, the electorate, and even Governor Snyder,
and if there was a heartfelt sense from all of these that business experience was
a prerequisite for being elected to the City Council, I think it would be in the City
Charter now [[though possibly not constitutional if so).

[Wesley Mouch]

People get the government they deserve. All the public in Detroit has to do is start voting with their brains instead of their emotions.

[Vic01]

People get the government they deserve. All the public in Detroit has to do is start voting with their brains instead of their emotions.

Serious questions here...
1. Do you expect to live long enough to see it happen?
2. Are you willing to live with the ongoing piss poor results if it doesn't happen?

[Wesley Mouch]

Serious questions here...
1. Do you expect to live long enough to see it happen?
2. Are you willing to live with the ongoing piss poor results if it doesn't happen?

Serious answers...
1) I should have 25+ more years. I do think that Detroiters will figure things out enough to be on the path to a livable city in my lifetime. Detroit voters elected a white guy. His whiteness doesn't matter. That he was qualified does. And voters figured this out. I don't like Duggan's politics a lot, but I respect that he has experience [[and is willing to use Detroit as a stepping stone on his way to the Governor's mansion and the White House). For Detroit to succeed, quality has to win over racial pandering. And its started. So Yes.

2) I don't live with the results. Having lived the vast majority of my life in the City, I joined hundreds of thousands of whites and blacks and moved out [[such that Hamtramck is out). I hope things get better, but if voters decide to elect someone who talks nice again over someone of quality -- well then they can live with the consequences -- and I'll be OK with that.

[downtownguy]

Not sure what it would take, but do you think the City Charter should be amended to require people running for City Council to have some qualifications?

Like perhaps business experience? [[Hopefully successful business experience).

Someone perhaps like Donald Trump?

[Wesley Mouch]

Someone perhaps like Donald Trump?

I don't respect nor agree with Mr. Trump much -- yet I think he would probably be a better leader than at least 50% of our current representatives. Successful business leaders as a group would make good representatives. Think Pensche more than Trump.

[Bigdd]

I doubt anyone of the likes of Penske or Trump have time to be on City Council long term,... BUT,.. there are plenty of small business owners and former business owners that could. Thousands.

I would like to agree with 48307 and others above,.. It certainly would be nice to leave it to the voters entirely,.. but voters cannot properly vet candidates. They don't have the time to do the investigative research. Also,.. 65% of Detroiters are illiterate,.. so even when The Detroit News comes out a week or two before an election and says ON THE FRONT PAGE that Charles Pugh cannot balance his checkbook,.. and has been foreclosed on for the second time because he is so dreadfully awful with money,.. and that he isn't even technically a Detroit resident anymore,.... HE STILL GETS ELECTED,.. and with the most votes even,.. and as a result is Council President.

The district system is a HUGE blessing of course,.. as now the average citien only needs to vet 3-4 candidates instead of 50-100,... but whom amongst us even has time or legal and financial resources to do that much?

Wouldn't it make sense to only have candidates running that can read,.. balance a checkbook,... make payroll and understand a contract?

Really you need to be able to use a financial calculator. How can you tell the long term impacts of a union contract if you can't? Let's say you want to pay 5,000 employees $20 and hour,.. plus healthcare [[which you have no way to predict the cost of in the future),.. and you want to pay them 90% of their pay plus that unknown amount of healthcare for 2-4 decades after they retire,.. even a decade or so after they are dead? [[if their spouse outlives them) How much will that cost? Is there even any chance the city will be able to pay the bill when it comes due? If the odds that the City can pay are less than 2%,... should you still vote in favor?

These are critical questions that every council member MUST know the answer to before voting.

[BankruptcyGuy]

Not passing judgment on the concept of having certain types of people be local, state and national officials, but it is unlikely that any of those concepts, other than residency, would pass constitutional muster.

My $0.02 is that governments work better close to home than far away, and also when the officials are unpaid. They are forced to have full-time jobs, and that makes them understand the rest of the world a little better, and they are less likely to waste their time.

Recently, my local school district had an issue with a paving project. When I objected to what was going on, I was told "you see, it's different in the public sector..." What I hope is needless to say is that the next 45 minutes were a spirited, sometimes one-sided, discussion about why that attitude is counter-productive and tends to waste the taxpayers' money.

[Richard]

I don't respect nor agree with Mr. Trump much -- yet I think he would probably be a better leader than at least 50% of our current representatives. Successful business leaders as a group would make good representatives. Think Pensche more than Trump.

Mr Bing for president ?

A lot of business owners by nature are A personality , do as I say because I said so,without question.Not so much on the greater good side.

[Ray1936]

"and you want to pay them 90% of their pay plus that unknown amount of healthcare for 2-4 decades after they retire,.. "

Geez, dd, where ever did you get that 90% from? My CofD pension is 40% of an active [[took a reduction to cover the wife in the event of my death.) Some of you people really think retirees are on the gravy train. Oh....and zero healthcare, thanks to bankruptcy. I don't care, the hospital can friggin chase me for whatever I may owe.

[Tuere]

Bigdd, where are you getting the 65% illiteracy rate from?

I've seen 47% functionally illiterate which seems ridiculously high and unfortunate. Do you really need to add 20 pts to get your point across?

http://theweek.com/articles/484910/d...lliteracy-rate

[Dumpling]

As well as Charles Pugh, Gary Brown was also on a media-recommended slate
to be elected to City Council. I do believe he is now with the executive branch of the
City of Detroit, and good businessman that he is, is probably partly responsible
for bringing an improved street parking fee system

http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...ment/71477366/

to a neighborhood near you.

I wouldn't call Mr. Pugh illiterate at all, at all. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he has several degrees. He could post on here as well as anyone if he wanted to, I'm sure, and was a relatable and well-spoken television reporter far more talented than I could ever aspire to be.

Full disclosure: I am a City of Detroit water department employee headed to GLWA
as things stand now. I make more than $20 per hour.

[Bigdd]

"and you want to pay them 90% of their pay plus that unknown amount of healthcare for 2-4 decades after they retire,.. "

Geez, dd, where ever did you get that 90% from? My CofD pension is 40% of an active [[took a reduction to cover the wife in the event of my death.) Some of you people really think retirees are on the gravy train. Oh....and zero healthcare, thanks to bankruptcy..

We're on the same page actually.

Wouldn't it have been nice if 30 years ago [[or whenever the deals were signed that promised you healthcare etc in retirement) if the council members had been able to crunch the numbers correctly and seen that YOU had no chance of getting paid the amounts you were promised?

Then you could have decided whether to stay and put away a lot more of your income to retirement,.. or seek employment elsewhere?

It's too late for all of that now,... YOU can't go back in time and do it differently.