Pensacola City Council member Megan Pratt has posted on her blog a defense for the at-large seats.
As I reported earlier on this blog and in the IN, Pensacola has the largest city council for any city its size in the state of Florida. I have argued that the two at-larger seats, which the Pensacola Charter Review Commission had originally wanted cut, should be eliminated. The at-large seats are throwbacks to the era where the whites wanted to control the council and dilute the power of the single-member districts.
Pratt ignores the fact that charter commission wanted to eliminate her seat. Instead, she writes about why she believes they kept it—because “People in our community are passionate about voting.” She argues that voters can now elect their councilmen, two at-large and the mayor – which “increases the chances that their perspectives will be voiced during council deliberations.”
The reason the charter commission added back the two at-large seats to the proposed charter was the council made it clear they would not let it go before the voters without it. Not the commission, the council demanded it be put back. Pratt’s mother, Lois Benson, was the most vocal against cutting her daughter’s seat. Politics, not reason, kept the at-large seats.
Pratt knows this. She was sitting on the council at the time.
Pratt also argues the wisdom of crowds. “The more people participating in the debate, the more likely all angles of an issue will be considered and the more likely the final product will be better than any one person could have created.” If this is the case, then why does the council have a time limit for public input at its meetings? Why doesn’t Pratt hold town hall meetings across the city and let the crowds tell her what they think?
Currently if every council member speaks a minimum of 5 minutes on issue, the discussion will last 45 minutes. If there is a presentation for that item, the entire time for an individual item could be over an hour. A citizen wanting to speak on an issue may have to wait three hours if his issue is late in the meeting.
Finally Pratt brings up the $28,000 the city would save by cutting the two seats—I never said that this was a budget issue. “If more members provide better decision making on a $200 million budget, that $14,000 is worth it.”
And that is the crux of the matter, is the City Council making better decisions because it has nine members?
I don’t see it.
Does Pratt have the courage to put the issue on a referendum for the public and the “wisdom of the crowds” to decide?
We may have to have a petition drive to get this past the City Council and on the 2012 ballot.