your insensitiveness to our local culture never ceases to amaze me.

You say "Any qualified candidate for the City Maager position who hopes to have a productive and rewarding career will almost certainly see Chico as a dead end opportunity."

Well, I think that's great. What you are suggesting is that we stop running our town ourselves, and turn it over to professional politicians.

Let me remind you, Jones was hired from the bay area. That's the problem. Chico needs local leadership, people who have lived and paid taxes here and care what kind of town we have, not somebody like Jones who can run off when the going gets rough.

Juanita--

Thanks for your comments. You write:
Chico needs local leadership, people who have lived and paid taxes here and care what kind of town we have

That's why I favor a Strong Mayor Charter. The chief executive would by necessity not only be a local person, but one who has the confidence of many other locals to see to their best interests.

Under the current system, Jones was hired by a committee, one divided by ideological inclination and unaccountable to specific constituencies. Under a Strong Mayor system, the technocrats that actually do the day-to-day governing would be hired by a single elected official accountable to the entire community for his or her decisions, and to a council elected in district elections, thus accountable to specific localized constiuencies with more pressing priorities than the broad generalities of "left" or "right".

As for being "insensitive" to the "local culture", I would observe that its chief characteristic is that the term "mañana" does not convey the same urgency that it does in Mexico. Change is hard for most folks, but in Chico it seems harder than usual.

The local culture must evolve; it cannot survive if its only animating principle is to preserve the illusion that Chico is just a small, rural village. It has become a small city, and will become a medium-sized one within 50 years. The ship has sailed; we might as well get good at this.

Chico is becoming a bigger city because certain people want the increased revenues for bigger salaries for themselves. A city gets bigger when the council permits building. They told us we needed more housing - that was a ruse. What they really wanted was a bigger property tax base, and they sure got it. 5 years ago, sales tax was our chief revenue, now it's prop tax.

I'm not resistant to all change, I'm resistant to BAD CHANGE, and that's the direction we're heading with all the "high end" development, all the subsidized amenities for these families that are moving here. They want more parks because they are being forced into tiny little houses with no yards, so I am supposed to pay.

That's another thing I'm resistant to, paying for stuff that I don't use. I'd really rather send my 16 year old to college, but after I finish paying my property taxes twice a year, I'm lucky to have something in the pot for dinner.

I've had a good life here, now I can hardly afford groceries. That's the change I've seen in Chico over the last 5 years.

When my 16 year old was a baby, life was perfect here. When his brother came along 4 years later, every thing began to be strained. Higher prices for groceries, no room at the swimming pool, not safe to ride bikes anywhere anymore. Noise pollution has increased, air pollution has increased, travel times around town because of traffic have increased. There is trash everywhere - it didn't used to be like that.

We're long time Chicoans Alan, you've only lived here since '98. I realize it's hard for you to see what the increased population and the ridiculous demand for revenues have done to long time working class Chicoans like us. While change might have been a good thing for you, it has been bad for the working class families that provide the housing, the services, and the tax base for this town. We're being crushed under the strain of providing for these grandiose plans. We paid for the fountain, and now we're paying to keep it clean. Stuff like that makes people like us hateful and angry.

Get used to it.

Juanita--

Thanks again for your observations.

The only way to keep people from moving to a place because it's a great place to live is to make it a not great place to live. And while it appears that some folks would be perfectly content with that, it's not an effective methodology for sustaining Chico's quality of life.

Chico is growing because it offers a unique combination of community characteristics that are irresistible to folks fleeing urban centers. If new housing isn't built for these new arrivals, the cost of the existing housing stock will simply rise to exclude those who don't command the same means.

The result of development obstructionism has been that local families are migrating to Orland, Gridley, Oroville, and other places where they can afford housing. But they still motor into Chico to work, shop, and socialize, and this burdens our local economy, inasmuch as they demand services but pay no property taxes here.

Your complaint appears to assume that low incomes and limited economic opportunities are inevitable for working families. In fact, planned growth can lead to increased economic vitality for the community and region as a whole, and for working families striving to establish and maintain stable households and strong community relationships. Pulling the ladder up isn't going to get the job done; it will only ensure diminished economic opportunities for families already mired in stagnation.

Whether the changes in Chico are particularly favorable to your situation, they are nevertheless unavoidable. Rather than simply trying to hold back the tide with invective and spite, perhaps you might be better off developing a plan to take advantage of the changes that are happening. Otherwise, you might end up simply bitter, angry, and hateful. This can only result in your priorities receiving but scant attention from policy makers and influencers. Being pissed off is not a strategy.

--Ax

I guess I'm just not a "take advantage" kind of person.

I have been a proponent of a directly elected mayor in the past (though not for Chico). There are many benefits to this approach - a scant few cited by you, Alan. But none of the reasons you indicate here apply to the City of Chico. In fact, your comments in favor of a directly elected mayor (you call it a strong mayor) can very easily be turned in defense of the status quo.

In the town of my birth (Sunnyvale, California), one Larry Stone placed this before the electorate in (geez....I gotta think back here) 1990. While it did not pass, it was interesting to hear the many reasons why a directly elected mayor was a bad idea. Interestingly the opponents cited exactly what you claim are benefits. Isn't that funny.

Again, I might be in support of a directly elected mayor but I don't think creating districts is beneficial to anyone. In fact, it is my belief that this is the Hooker Oak Alliance reviewing precinct numbers and thinking of ways to gerrimander a win down the road (yes, Alan. You know the precinct returns *were* that bad).

I wonder how much attention will be paid to certain "districts" if a councilmember from district A was elected to support district A and not be concerned about District B.

A directly elected mayor is one thing. Districting councilmembers is entirely another and shouldn't be considered a viable strategy regardless of the intent.

Alan,
I've written extensively about this issue of electing the mayor and having district elections for council members. Check out this CN&R cover story from June of 2001: http://www.newsreview.com/chico/Content?oid=4451

I lived in Boise for a couple of years and covered City Hall for Boise Weekly. Boise had a strong-mayor/council-districts form of government. Interestingly, the mayor didn't serve as the city manager, but rather hired a professional manager to do that kind of work. The mayor's job was to be the political leader of the city, to create a vision and set an agenda. People knew who was in charge and who could be held accountable. After all, the mayor had been elected by a majority of the city's voters. The manager was responsible for the nuts-and-bolts work of implementing the mayor's and the council's decisions.

I thought having council districts was effective. Boise is about twice as large as Chico, still small enough to have a strong sense of community. Council members cared about the whole community and knew that their district's health was dependent upon the health of the rest of the city. There wasn't much in the way of self-interested competition.

At the same time, they were responsive to a distinct constituency and worked hard to solve the problems and realize the goals of that constituency. Voters knew who represented them at the city and where to go if they needed help.

That's not true in Chico. Voters don't have particular people they turn to. All council members represent everybody. None is elected by a majority vote. As a result, there's a serious leadership void here. Most people don't even know who the mayor is.

At this point I don't think Chico needs the kind of strong mayor you are recommending, but I do think it would benefit from having a mayor elected citywide for four years and paid a salary to be the leader of a districted council. The council would continue to hire a professional manager, but it and the mayor would be stronger and better able to provide not only the kind of month-to-month decision-making it is now providing, but also real vision and leadership.

To Randall Stone I would say this: A stronger mayor would be a boon for Democrats like you who hope one day to be able to elect someone to the Assembly. It would provide a potential jumping-off point for Democrats seeking sufficient regional name recognition to run in a conservative district. And it would give Chico more clout and authority with such bodies as the League of California Cities.

Robert--

First off, I must express my gratitude that you are even reading my humble opinionmongering, and that you took pains to write. Dog's Breakfast is honored by your presence.

I remember your piece in 2001 (I even tried to search for it when I began writing the above), and it was indeed an insightful and comprehensive analysis of the subject.

My strong mayor would, I expect, behave much as you describe. I wouldn't expect the first few such mayors to have the depth of management and public administration chops to do the critical day-to-day supervision of the city's business. But I would expect them to hire the senior management team, with council ratification. If the Mayor is the "CEO", the deputy manager, a career public administrator type, would be the Chief Operating Officer, and would probably do most of the recruiting for the various department head positions.

But over time I would expect the Mayor's office to attract candidates who would run not only on their policy priorities and political alignment, but also on their experience managing large teams, big budgets, and persistent challenges.

And I completely agree about district elections providing better leadership as well as more direct and acountable representation for nighborhoods.

I don't think it should devolve into inter-district competitiveness, although I admit I would like to see a concilmember with an out front, explicit and unapologetic bias for the central business district and its unique importance to the health of the overall community and region beyond.

Thanks again for writing, and please come back again.