Frustrated by a growing sense of disconnect between city government and the public, the Ad Hoc Committee on Best Practices in Northampton has spent the last year trying to determine how best to revive civic engagement in the city.
To better understand the dynamic between the city and voters, the seven-member team, made up of three city councilors and four residents, conducted a review of the different city offices and held a series of forums to get the public’s input. The committee synthesized the information gathered into 10 recommendations to the City Council, which is expected to vote on adopting them no later than early March. A final public forum on the draft recommendations is scheduled for Feb. 11 at 7 p.m. at the JFK Middle School.
The committee is now busy promoting its “Draft Recommendations for Ensuring the Use of Locally and Nationally Accepted Best Practices in Northampton Decision-Making.” Last week, committee members Wendy Foxmyn and Alex Ghiselin visited the Advocate to discuss the recommendations.
During its review process, Foxmyn and Ghiselin heard one question over and over: should the city be expected to enforce the Best Practices recommendations? The committee’s purpose, they said, was to define the issues the city faced and offer ideas; enforcement would be a matter of democratic process, which, Foxmyn said, involved committed participation from the public and the press.
But is a set of suggestions going to be enough to teach old dogs new tricks?
Foxmyn said that Mayor Clare Higgins has already taken some of the recommendations to heart, especially in providing the public with more information about city budgets.Foxmyn praised the mayor’s intellect and faculty for understanding government bureaucracy, but she said the mayor’s hands-on approach had made her more manager than leader. Foxmyn said the committee’s suggestions might lead to greater autonomy for city departments, which should work with the administration rather than being managed by it.
Ghiselin, a former city councilor, said he he felt the balance in city governance had tipped too far toward full-time professional administrators who command the resources and call the shots. The City Council, he said, currently relies on opinions from people who report directly to the mayor, including the city solicitor, rather than seeking independent or alternate opinions on issues. Volunteer boards find themselves playing catch-up, trying to understand complex issues that have been in the works for a long time, but with which they’ve only recently become acquainted.
Both Foxmyn and Ghiselin pushed two recommendations in particular: review the city charter, which hasn’t been comprehensively reviewed in decades; and create a new Citizens’ Advisory Committee to oversee and enforce best practice recommendations.
City Councilor Michael Bardsley supports the idea of forming an advisory committee. He told the Advocate he would “fully support [one] that does not include councilors… [if] such a committee is to be effective it will need members who can take on the charge of that committee as their top priority.”
He argued that oversight by independent volunteers, rather than city officials, is needed “to rebuild the trust of Northampton residents in city government. The demand for the creation of the Best Practices Committee came from a group of citizens who were disillusioned with how city government has made some key decisions, each of which will have a significant impact on the future of this city. Setting up an advisory or oversight committee which is comprised solely of citizens could go a long way in reestablishing confidence in local government.”
As useful as the report may be identifying the source of the disillusion Bardsley describes, it lacks teeth. There is no timetable for the committee’s recommendations, and even if the City Council accepts them, the city is not legally bound to enact them.
Still, with elections approaching this fall, the committee’s report gives voters new insight as to current city practices, tacitly encouraging them to use the ballot box to force the government to change its ways.
The full text of the Best Practices Committee's ten recommendations are available on Daryl LaFleur's blog, Northampton Redoubt.
