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EDITOR’S PAGE

By Lee Cullum |

DURING HIS last weeks in office, Mayor Jack Evans has been handing out copies of John Naisbitt’s Megatrends. In his current best seller, Naisbitt makes a number of telling points about the future of the United States, but his most provocative ideas concerning Dallas are these: (1) local government is where the action is because decentralization is diminishing the impact of Washington, and (2) in dramatically shifting, unstable times, the individual can have extraordinary leverage and influence, especially on the local level.

Considering these trends and their implications, it’s disheartening to see so few candidates competing in the City Council election April 2. Not that there aren’t good people running. In the mayor’s race, former Park and Recreation Board President Starke Taylor has shown a lot of political courage in taking on an opponent as well known as Councilman Wes Wise. Annette Strauss, running at large, has a long, distinguished record of community service. And there are others who will make substantial contributions to the council if elected. Still, candidates the caliber of current councilmen Joe Haggar and Sid Stahl, both of whom will be leaving city government next month, seem to be in short supply.

What can be done?



$12,000 ANNUAL FEE

IS FAIR FOR COUNCIL

Some people say that the low remuneration has been a deterrent to those people wishing to serve on the council. There will be a proposition on the April 2 ballot to change the City Charter, increasing the current $50-per-meeting stipend (which adds up to about $3,500 a year) to $12,000 annually. Certainly, this fee hike is fair since serving on the council is becoming more time-consuming, but it’s not likely to help attract strong candidates to City Hall.

Others point to the large volume of time that city business devours and urge that these demands be reduced, especially since council members are working essentially on a volunteer basis. With this in mind, the council tried cutting back the schedule of regular meetings from once a week to twice a month with weekly briefings. This hasn’t been as successful as many had hoped. Agendas for the regular meetings have piled up unmercifully; nonetheless the experiment will continue until the new City Council can decide what to do next. There is something to be said for returning the weekly briefings to the sixth floor room in City Hall instead of holding them in the council chamber. The more informal setting seemed less imposing and more accessible.

Still others say that the endless harangues and needless contention characterizing City Council meetings in this age of political activism are repelling competent people who might otherwise be interested in serving at City Hall. This is a difficult problem to solve because, as Naisbitt says, representative democracy has given way to participatory democracy, and citizens are determined to speak for themselves. Unfortunately, at Dallas City Council meetings it often seems to be the same citizens. How necessary is it for the entire council to sit week after week and listen to the same song? Recalling that congressional testimony frequently is given in a nearly empty room to little more than someone to preside and a stenographer, the council might consider requiring that only a quorum (seven members) be present for public comments that don’t pertain to items on the official agenda. Council members could rotate this duty, and presentations could be scheduled for the end of each regular meeting. The press would be present to cover anything of importance, a public record would be created in every case and matters requiring action by the full council could be put on a later agenda. Nothing would be lost, and a respite for council members might be gained.

NEW GROUP NEEDED

TO SEEK CANDIDATES

That still leaves the question of how to recruit able candidates for the council. For more than 40 years, the job was handled by the Citizens Charter Association (CCA), a group that selected candidates who all ran at large. .

Then came single-member districts where campaign support was less important than neighborhood contacts. The CCA crumbled. Accused of every ism, its compatriots crept into the shadows of political life, assisting individual candidates where they could but disavowing any organized role in city elections.

It’s true that single-member districts brought greater representation at the neighborhood level and probably fairer distribution of services, but with that came the loss of big-picture politics. It’s time to restore a large vision to City Hall to balance more localized interests.

This means that stronger council candidates will have to be sought and persuaded to run for office. The question is, by whom? The old CCA has long been dead and buried. But life has a way of being cyclical, and it may be time for a new, broadly based group to focus its energies on City Hall. It wouldn’t be easy. There would be the perplexing question of whether or not to endorse candidates in minority districts. Would this seem inappropriate, even with minorities involved in the recruitment process? Would the endorsement of such a group be the kiss of death at the polls? These same questions could be asked about any district in Dallas. It may be that everyone wants to be left alone.

But not necessarily. There’s evidence that voters are willing to accept the recommendations of citizen endorsement groups when they have confidence in the group’s integrity. The Quality Education Committee succeeded in electing its candidates to the school board two years ago, and the Committee for a Qualified Judiciary made a more-than-respectable showing in last fall’s judicial races. The same approach might work at City Hall.

And if it doesn’t? It’s still worth trying. As a British diplomat once observed: “Better to have it end in disaster than to have a disaster that never ends.”

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