Agenda - Charter Commission - 01/08/2002 - Memorandum

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home rule charter may provide "for the regulation of all local functions, as fully as the legislature might have done" befo,e home rule charters for cities were authorized.2 A number of Minnesota cities, beginning appar- ently with Duluth in 1912-13, have, therefore, left out of their charters the old-fashioned long and tailed enumerations of municipal powers which once constituted so much of the entire c?:arter, and have substituted brief, broad, general statements which confer all municipal power upon the corpor- ation. More than 60 Minnesota cities besides Duluth have done the same thing in one form or another. Cincinnati, in the home ruie state of Ohio, goes to the extreme in this mat~er, for its home ruie char- ter says simply: "The city shall have all powers of iocai self-government and home rule and al! other powers possible for a city to have under the consti- tution of the state of Ohio.''30rtonv!lle and Chat- field, among others, have included a similar provi- sion in their charters. 100. A simple, responsive municipal organiza- tion. A good city charter should provide for a sim. pie, workable, responsive organization of the city government, it should be simple, so that alt citizens and officials may understand it. It should be de- signed not to check and retard the municipal busi- ness, but to promote it, to eliminate red tape, and to make thego~ernment more efficient by a ~educ- tion in the number of working parts, it should be responsive at all times to the forces of public opin- ion and to the control of the electorate. Especially in large cities, and as far as possible in smM[ places, it shou]d encourage and reward expertness and ef- ficiency in the administration, and should discour- age the untrained citizen who tries to get himself by political influence into places which he is not qualified to fill. Even small cities, while they may be forced by their Mender resources to the use of volunteer citizen service, may well study their bud- gets to see whether it would not be a saving in the long run to hire a few or even only one full-time trained and disinterested municipal official for ad- ministrative work. A growing numberof small cities have done this. for so many years with different forms of munici- pal government that they are coming to learn, often by sad experiences,some of the fundamentals of good municipal organization. Slowly but surely the~e is growing upa public opinion which is united upon the code of principles soon to:be explained. But n. must be said that even an ideal form of government w~ll never work well without the aid of an alert, intelligent, interested body of ~itizens. There is no such thing as an automatic government, any 'more than there is such a thing as a self- enforc,ng law The chief stumbling block today as always on the highway to good government is the apathetic, the indifferent citizen A good 'form of government is important just as good tools are im- portant to the workman; in such a way, a good charter, instead of hampering ~he government and encouraging ~nefficiency, will give good officials supported by an.intelligent electorate an opportun- ity to increase the efficiency of the government. lmportantas it is, however, a well-organized goveen- ment is not a panacea for all municipal ills. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and of good govern- ment. in the long r'un people will get just as bad a government, or just as good a government, as they deserve. 102. Principles of popular control over goverm. ment. (1) The etective officers of the city should be few and important The voters ¥, ill then be able to cast their ba!lots more intelligently, and since the elective offices will have more importance than formerly, perhaps abler men can be induced to run for them: In no case should the voters be asked to elect unimportant admini-strattve officers. This may be called the "short ballot" princ.~pie. (2) Etect~on of the council at la~ge'wiil in the long run ensure the election of abler councilmen, will establish majority rule, and will put the inter- eats of the city asa whole above those of any part. Something can be sa~d for electing part but not all of the council by the ward system in large cities, but almost nothing can be sa:d for a ward system in small places. If neither an at-targe or a ward sys~ tern seems satisfactory, proportional representation may be worthy of being considered 4 The Essentials of a Good Municipal Organization 101. The citizens are responsible for good government. American cities have experimented 2M.S. 410.07. See also ]>ark v City of D~duth (1916), 134 Minn. 296, !59 N.W. 627; State ex tel. Zion v. City of Duhtth (1916), 134 Minn. 355, 159 N.W. 792. The current home rule provisions are found in' Article XI of the Constitution as re- vised in t958. (3) The ~nitiative, referendum, and recall, once considered radical and stdl often criticized on grounds of political theory, have been commonly included in ,ecent charters and they sometimes 3See sec. 1.02 of the model charter for a specimen provision. 4See sec. 116, below_ -2-