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Some time before the November general election, Fargo voters will have a special election concerning a proposal to city government from an at-large commission, where each member of the commission (except for the mayor) is elected by the whole city, to a ward system, where the city is split into jurisdictions each with a specific representative.
"It would establish six wards and one person elected from each ward," former city commissioner Arlette Preston, an organizer behind this issue, said on this episode of Plain Talk. "The candidate would have to live inside the ward and be elected by people in the ward. So, it would also change from a commission form of government to a council form, which that will remove the commissioners as they are currently assigned certain portfolios and daily interactions with certain departments. It would remove them from that and allow for the city administrator to actually have direct oversight."
Former Mayor Tim Mahoney has opposed this proposal, and one of his complaints is the cost. He's said it could cost the taxpayers as much as $500,000 to make the switch, but Preston dismissed that claim.
"I have no idea where he got his numbers and he never really specified where they came from," she said. "There would be two additional people on the council versus what is currently the commission. So there'd be a total of seven people including the mayor versus now it's five. So those two additional people would add probably around 80,000 total in salary and benefits for two of them. That would be an annual cost."
She also pushed back on Mahoney's claim that the proposal would lead to a weak mayor. She said that state law actually defines a system like this as promoting a strong mayor, because while the mayor would only participate in council votes as a tie breaker, he or she would have veto power. Also, with the mayor's job already having moved to a full-time position, whoever is elected to that position will be more involved in day-to-day administration.
Preston says the change toward wards would make Fargo's leaders more accountable. "What this allows is to make sure that somebody does advocate for you," she explained. "Right now, when communications come into the commission, it goes to all five people." Living in a district that has a specific member of the city council to represent your area means they should be more responsive. "It really, I think, establishes a stronger sense of accountability to the constituents," Preston told us.
Also on this episode, co-host Chad Oban and I discuss the fundraising failure for the proposed military museum at the state capitol in Bismarck, the decline in Canadian tourism, youth sports and extreme heat, the outcome of the Greater North Dakota Chamber of Commerce's recent civics bee, and fatherhood.
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