Bob Ball’s Empty Promise
At this past Wednesday’s forum on Charter revision, Bob Ball stated that City Council had promised to refer to the voters whatever the Charter Review Commission came back with. I’m fuzzy on one thing: Did he claim merely that Council had verbally promised to do this, or did he assert that the resolution establishing the Commission stated this? Here’s why it’s important to know.
First, the resolution in question says no such thing.
Second, any particular Council cannot legally bind any future Council to a particular decision. This is why, when Voter-Owned Elections was adopted, the Council could not legally commit a later Council to referring it to the voters, and instead could only promise to do so at a later date. (Or, really, recommend that a later Council do so.)
I had thought to call up the video archive of the Council meeting in question, in order to determine whether or not all five Council members had verbally promised to refer the Commission’s eventual recommendations, but apparently the City website doesn’t maintain an archive that far back (it ends in November of 2006).
While such verbal promises arguably would be fair game for Team Potter’s political campaign, the real issue would be the irresponsibility of making such promises to begin with.
Let’s take it to an extreme case in order to make the point. Suppose the Commission had returned with a recommendation to do away with Council altogether and only have a Mayor and an unelected administrator. No member of Council in their right mind would refer that to the voters simply because they had promised to refer the Commission’s recommendations.
If the promise was a verbal one — and if all five Council members made one — the problem is that it was stupid of them to make such a promise blindly.
But if Ball has been claiming that the resolution itself contained such a promise (which is my personal recollection of his statement), then that’s simply a complete and utter fabrication. So, those of you with better (and perhaps less drunken) recall of Wednesday’s forum perhaps could help me out.
What, exactly, did Bob Ball claim? Is he, as a public representative of Team Potter, simply lying to people?
April 7th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
I also recall Bob Ball saying there was a specific promise to refer the Commission’s recommendations. I remember him saying “in the second paragraph of the resolution”. There is no such promise anywhere in the Resolution.
Thanks for linking to the Resolution, b!X. The paragraph on future Charter Commissions is downright scary: “WHEREAS, changes to the City of Portland’s Charter can only be made by the electorate through a ballot measure referred by the City Council, or through a citizen-led ballot initiative, which may prevent needed changes and updates that could be made through regular review by an established Charter Commission”. So apparently, Measure 26-89 to create an ongoing Charter Review Commission with the power to send changes to the voters without approval of City Council, is just a first step. After that, it seems like the Commission plans to ask the voters to change the Charter to allow the Commission to make “updates” without even referring them?
April 7th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
I believe Bob’s words (at the Mercury Forum) were “it’s right in the ordinance.” At least, that’s my memory.
But it begs the ’so what’ question. He got his recommendations on the ballot. What’s he complaining about?
April 7th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
After that, it seems like the Commission plans to ask the voters to change the Charter to allow the Commission to make “updates” without even referring them?
Yeah, I don’t agree that this is suggested there.