The Charter Commission proposal has gone down to defeat by over 1,500 votes, 12,519 to 10,912. There’s going to be a lot of second-guessing in the days and weeks ahead.
The No’s have it
by Sean Roche | Nov 7, 2017 | Newton | 25 comments
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You can fool some of the people…but, obviously not all of them!
Congratulations to the no campaign.
And before we get into second guessing, a full thank you to the charter officials who spent so much time and energy, all in an attempt to make our city better. Even if you don’t agree with their proposal, they deserve to be thanked for their hard work.
Ditto what Fig said. Also, I would like to thank the Charter Commissioners who were generous contributors on V14, especially Jane and Bryan.
I won’t say that this is not a disappointment. But I echo what’s already been said: thank you to all who took on the monumental task of rewriting our City’s Charter. Your work is appreciated and hopefully you have raised issues that will not die with this “no” vote.
While this is my last local election rodeo, I’ll have some thoughts to share at tomorrow night’s city council hearing. See you there!
Now the council’s obligation is to deliver on the option 8/8 kicker, clean, simple, and a healing confidence builder for the electorate. KISS – results speaking louder than words.
Care in not making the same mistakes by taking on too much in a total machine revamp.
As usual, what Fig said. Thank you charter commissioners and everyone who worked to get charter review on the ballot in the first place.
And congratulations to Emily Norton, Jack
PorterPrior, Marc Laredo and everyone else (Andy Levin) on the no side for a successful, tactfully smart, campaign. You defined this issue before voters were even paying attention and never looked back. And that’s a compliment.I do not support 8 and 8 but that’s a discussion for another day, or rather about 12 hours from now, but who’s counting.
Thanks to the Commission for the work. I am disappointed by the electorate’s response to it.
Sign me up for the petition for reducing the size of the city council and imposing term limits while retaining the ward-only vote. Or how else may Yes supporters proceed? By electing a Commission the majority of city voters supported some change (I can’t imagine they wanted a year+ process to say all is well).
Did anyone predict 53% “No” vote?
Whoops. How embarrassing. I predicted 53% “No” vote. I forgot about it. Do I win something? Money is preferred.
I’d love to see a post-election survey on why voters went with No. What were the issues important to them? What led them to support No? Did they vote yes on Charter 2 years ago?
@Kevin – there is a hearing TONIGHT at City Hall starting at 7PM on the 8-and-8 model. Please come and support it! Or if you can’t, send the City Council an email via City Clerk David Olson at [email protected].
Thank you Greg but you mean to thank Jack Prior.
@Councilor Norton: Whoops. Yes, corrected.
Hubris and arrogance lost last night.
The reality is that an all at-large composition was out-of-step with local government structural norms, contrary to best practices as defined by experts in the field, and the opposite of structures that the national Democratic party has supported for the past few decades. In the face of all of that, our Charter Commissioners thought they knew better. The voters of Newton made clear that they were wrong.
While I do appreciate the time spent by the Commission members, the “preserve Ward representation” position was an obvious attempt to hoodwink voters that followed less closely that the structure was merely being downsized, not fundamentally changed. Congratulations to the NO campaign for making the facts clearly and widely known. In these days of Fake News and unclear facts, its important to point out that tactics like “preserve Ward representation” have no room in Newton. The supporters of the Charter who pushed that deserve to be admonished for participating in that behavior.
You know the old saying, “Change is hard but intrusive local governance by pious femtocrats is easy.”
I would fist like to say that even though there was a winning and losing side, everyone won because of our system of democracy. However as the two years of the charter commissions work went on I listened to the discussions and debates about the charter. As I become more and more involved it became clearer and clearer to me that the charter (constitution) of Newton should be considered a living breathing thing. We have a wonderful example to follow that defines our laws in the United States. The rules and procedures around our constitution should be very similar to what we do with the Newton Charter. I feel terrible that we basically threw away the baby with the bathwater. While I may have been against a reduction in the size of the City Council (not in reduction but the model), I was in favor of term limits and some kind of scheduled review of the Charter. I would like to see the City Council work to create a Charter and a process similar to our constitution. One that allows items to be voted on and added as needed. One that required a 2/3 majority to pass. Clearly the current work around (home rule petitions) are not efficient or effective. Why can’t we adopt a similar model to the US government, and add amendments to our charter as they become needed, in a process that is clear, and transparent. The folks of the charter commission gave up two years of their lives to work on something to help the city. I hope they all feel that while they were not successful they did a great job getting people involved in local politics. That is clear from yesterday’s election turnout.
Thanks to all of the commissioners who volunteered their time. It was probably the most transparent process we have ever had. I hope we model our future meetings after yours. You all did a wonderful job and should be proud of the proposal you came up with.
No side- You ran a really good campaign, you worked hard and it all paid off for you. Another big win for Emily Norton….nice job.
Yes vote, you also ran a good smart campaign. It’s a shame we lost, but someone had to.
The people spoke regarding this proposal, it’s time to move forward with an 8 and 8 model.
I thought, given what was at stake, this election season was terrific. For the most part, it was civil and informative. Nice job to everyone.
Since I don’t have time to go up and down this blog today, I’d like to shout out to all the candidates (who won and lost) and thank them for running (along with their volunteers). I hope your issues get more attention. Congratulations to Ruthanne. Scott you ran a wonderful campaign. I hope you stay involved.
@Tom: Awesome post. I hope you start that Youtube channel on politics as your steadfast integrity and ability to genuinely appreciate two sides of an argument has earned my deepest respect.
BIG, Big win yesterday for Emily Norton, Jack Prior and the multitude of volunteers (many of them seniors) who have the smarts and the stamina to fight for the Newton electorate retaining democracy. Thank you to everyone who helped pull this off. It’s inspiring to know that once in a while “truth, justice and the American way” wins.
I’m not too disappointed the No vote won and I do understand why.
The composition proposed by the council docketers would be even more dysfunctional than the 24 we have now. You can email David Olson, [email protected], to let the city council know you do not want the 8 ward-elected + 8 at-large council composition. You can also let the council know the combination you prefer.
I am thinking a council combination of 4 district*-elected + 8 residency-required at-large Councilors might be a good composition.
*District = Combination of 2 wards
I have never understood why the 4-district elected, 8-at large with ward residency composition never gained any traction – it downsizes while retaining some locally elected representation, and maintains the current ratio.
I was a big fan of the 4 district, 8 at large model. Just half the council.
I’m not a fan at all of 8/8 model. I think that gives too much power to individuals I don’t get to vote for or against.
I’m sad the charter lost, but overall I’m happy about the election. Lots of new progressive faces. Onward!
I think that “Yes” lost this vote, much more than “No” won the vote.
While both Mayoral candidates supported the changes, neither was out in front strongly advocating for them.
As a voter, I was influenced by the reports right before the election of where the “Yes” funding came from in our pro-development community. I’m not against development, but I felt that as a voter that I didn’t have the complete story and wondered why the background issues weren’t more transparent? It seemed that agendas were hidden.
As a citizen I tried to make comments to the Commission as it was in progress. Despite what appeared to be an open process, it seemed clear to me that much had already been decided without room for genuine discussion. What came over was overconfidence and hubris.
Newton has defeated overrides only to later approve them when better presented. I’m not married to the idea of a Ward Councillor, despite mine (Lisle Baker) being especially effective. But what I hope will come from this is an evolved proposal that learns from this experience, and that does more to benchmark differences between Newton and other similar cities, that looks at our staffing and experience levels and budgets, not mostly focused on representation efficiency and term limits.
Michael Slater’s analysis is correct.