Form of Government and the Health of the City

I firmly believe the current form of Government for the City of Georgetown is now an impediment to growth. The City is too small for both a full time Mayor and an Administrator–whose sole job is to administer policies as set by the Mayor. The pay for Mayor is too low to warrant anyone quitting their full time job to manage the day to day activities of operating the City. . How do we resolve this? Council can have a vote and simply move us to a Council Manager form of leadership, placing the day to day operations under a professional Manager who then acts at the behest of Council and Mayor. All the employees would then be accountable to 7 people and not one.

The best arguments for this change were made in the January 26, 1995 edition of the Georgetown Times. While being interviewed, current Mayor, Jack Scoville, was more eloquent about the need to change than I ever could be. He was quoted as saying “….City council needs to move forward with changing the form of government from strong mayor/weak council to manager/council structure. We had been operating under that style de facto since 1976 until Rubillo decided to exert his rightful authority under the law. Georgetown is too big to have a strong council form and it is not big enough to pay a full time mayor like Charleston does. Changing the style to the manager form will give the city manager legal authority to run the city and remove the politics from the day to day operations of the City.”

Those words still hold true today. Council, with the show of hands, can easily move this city forward with such a vote. Tom Winslow, Richard Powers and I are in complete agreement with Mr. Scoville’s words and will move to enact such an ordinance, if elected, at our first meeting.

Non partisan elections are another subject we feel passionate about and will work to change as well, Georgetown is one of a handful of municipalities that still votes based on the two main political parties. National politics and party ideology do not matter when it comes to water from the faucet, garbage collection or whether or not our streets are clean. The cost, while seemingly minimal, is too much for the residents to bear. 6-7,000 dollars every two years brings to mind that old saying–a penny saved is a penny earned. The last two elections have shown an electorate that is waking up and asking for new blood and are evaluating each candidate instead of looking for name recognition and party affiliation.  The time is now. A complete overhaul of local Government is long overdue.

Vote November 3, 2015, every voice needs to heard.