I’m posting my response to William Basinger’s letter to the editor on both the Clarkston Secrets and on the Clarkston Secrets (Comments) page. I’m not going to reproduce Mr. Basinger’s letter here; if you have an interest in what he has to say, you can find it in the paper or on the Clarkston News website.
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Mr. Basinger’s letter to the editor doesn’t refute anything that I said in my letter to the editor.
The “resign to run” issue only affects the offices of city council or mayor as these are the only elective offices in city government. Each of these offices are held for two-year terms. The resign to run issue arises only when an incumbent office holder wants to abandon the office to which s/he was elected half-way through the two-year term. Given that the duties of a city council member and the mayor are very similar (the mayor has some extra ceremonial duties and chairs the council meetings), there isn’t much reason to do this in the normal course – but there is every reason to do it if the office holder wants to create a vacancy to be filled by a candidate of his or her choice.
My objections to charter proposal #1 are not a “conspiracy theory.” To understand why eliminating resign to run is a bad idea, we need look no further than the actual conduct of Mayor Haven and Council member Marsh, both of whom used a cloak of secrecy in violation of the charter to try to run as unopposed candidates in the November 2018 election and happened to get caught. Mr. Marsh was aware that Mr. Haven planned to resign from his city council position in the middle of his term to run for mayor and was running in violation of the charter by gathering petition signatures before he resigned, and Mr. Marsh used that insider information to submit his petition in an attempt to run as an unopposed candidate for the remainder of Mr. Haven’s term. The “resign to run” proposal would authorize this conduct. It’s as simple as that.
Of course there would be a resignation by operation of law if someone wins election into a new position. I didn’t argue otherwise and that avoids my point. I think it’s a stretch to say that the voters presumably trust a newly elected official’s judgement with regard to appointing his or her replacement into an opening created by an undisclosed campaign for a different office. We have four candidates running for four council openings – all will be elected, whether we trust their judgment or not.
Mr. Basinger also stated that “the reason for placing these proposals before the voters is so they can make the final decision, rather than the committee or council.” This suggests that the charter committee is doing you a favor by giving you a voice on these proposals, but that is not true at all. The reason that these proposals are being placed before you is because ONLY the voters can change the charter.
Please take a stand against secrecy and vote NO on charter proposal #1.
Thank you.