Hey, Where’s Our Charter?
Today, one of our commenters, “Union Avenue,” wondered what happened to the idea of Fullerton becoming a Charter City.
13 months ago the Fullerton City Council voted 3-2 to start studying the idea of Charter City status for Fullerton, a move away from what it is now – a General Law City.
Then something almost odd happened. The issue disappeared completely. No discussion. Nothing.
This isn’t the first time in Fullerton something just vanished. We can all remember the $1,000,000 so-called Core and Corridors Specific Plan vaporized completely without a rearward glance.
Why did this go away? I don’t know, but I suspect that three councilmembers who voted for it lost interest or maybe decided it wasn’t worth the trouble, political or otherwise.
“Dr.” Ahmad Zahra and Shana Charles stirred up his usual claque to clamor against it, citing Fred Jung’s vaulting ambition, but failing to explain how, exactly, a charter would deliver an evil outcome.
I think it’s time to resurrect this idea, even though no one seems to want to chat about it. A lot of good could come from it. Despite the cries of horror from the Kennedy Sisters and their ilk, a new municipal organization could be created, with a strong, city-wide elected Mayor holding executive power and the accountability for it.
The “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” argument now seems absurd. The City is a breaking mess. The infrastructure is a disgrace and the finances seem to have been handed over to cluster of chimps. Things are not working. One only has to look at the budget disaster and the basic accounting errors to know it. Who knows what the proverbial “deep dive” into Fullerton’s personnel, purchasing, asset management and risk management might reveal?
When things don’t work, and haven’t worked for a long, time it sure looks a lot like an invitation to change.
But change is hard for everyone, especially when lots of people are involved in the making of it.
You can do a city-wide elected mayor in a general law city. If you want to waste staff time on this during a budget crisis, there should be a clear pitch on why a charter is necessary. The reason stated here doesn’t make sense as you don’t need a charter to do it
Waste staff time. Now that’s funny. Is it even possible?
There are probably as many reasons to have a charter as there are Charter Cities. Hence the need to investigate the potential. But if you are governed by fear of others’ motives you’re the one with a self-inflicted problem.
In any case the point here was to have a single, elected executive answerable to the public and not some overpaid, costly, and untouchable bureaucrat – an incompetent bozo like Domer or a milquetoasty Levitt who oversee a disaster for a few years and then flutter off to some other place.
Why did this die? Maybe Jung or Dunlap will explain. Valencia probably doesn’t even remember.
Ha. Valencia likely didn’t know what she was voting on at the time.
It hasn’t come back because staff doesn’t want a charter city.