| Our View... Preserve Gering’s form of government |
 April 27, 2012 By Citizen Staff |
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 During Monday’s city council meeting, member Joyce Hillman-Kortum made a motion to study moving Gering to a City Manager form of government, like Scottsbluff. Both models, city manager and city administrator, have positives and negatives to them. Still, we think changing Gering’s form of government is a terrible idea. Under our current City Administrator model, the city is divided into four wards of roughly equal population. Each ward has two council members, whose terms expire in alternating election years. The mayor is elected directly by the people and does not vote unless to break ties. Under state statute, the mayor can veto any council action; however, council can override a veto by a two-thirds vote. Under Scottsbluff’s City Manager model, council members are elected at-large, who then elect a president from their membership. The president is also a voting council member and ex officio mayor for ceremonial events. One description we’ve heard is that it’s a good-old-boys’ club. We see a problem with this. When council members are elected at-large, some parts of the city don’t receive representation. The East Overland area of southeast Scottsbluff comes to mind. More than a few people have told us it’s because the population of that area is largely minority and lower income. Parts of Gering are in a similar position but as residents of their wards, they always have two council members elected from their own neighborhoods. Looking at Scottsbluff today, four of its five council members reside in the north part of town. One member lives south of 27th St. and none live south of 20th St. State statute does allow for a city council to establish wards under a City Manager form of government. However, most cities in the Panhandle using that model, including Sidney, Chadron and Alliance, have opted for at-large election of council members. We’re not saying a City Administrator form of government like Gering’s doesn’t have some drawbacks. For example, what if a council seat goes vacant? That happened several years ago when a council member decided to step down at the end of her term and let someone else run for the seat. But no one stepped up, and the ballot for council member in that ward was blank in the November election. If the incumbent council member hadn’t run a write-in campaign, the mayor would have been responsible for appointing someone to a full four-year term. It would have been someone who wasn’t elected by residents of the ward. The mayor would most likely appoint someone who would be a reliable ally. Perhaps the most obvious element at play here is that two cities with the same form of government are that much easier to merge. The people have already spoken on that issue when the police merger was being discussed. Residents of Gering want to keep their own autonomy. But that doesn’t mean we can’t cooperate with all our neighbors. If there’s a moral here, it should be that residents of Gering need to be aware of what’s going on at city hall. Lots of people know who can’t dance, who can’t sing and who got voted off the island, but have no idea who their own council members are. That needs to change. |
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