Should City Clerk get involved in NC elections?
Daniel Wiseman, a member of the Van Nuys Neighborhood Council, recently e-mailed the following about the possibility of the City Clerk getting involved in Neighborhood Council elections. He writes:
The central issues are:
1. Most NC elections have occurred just fine, thank you.
2. With rare exceptions, all challenges to elections have been from disgruntled “losers” in an election ... thinly based on some procedural “error,” which was not accepted by the “Final Decision Maker.'
3. Elections are a time-consuming NC activity made more frustrating by two things: a confused and confusing DONE (Department of Neighborhood Empowerment) complex and an unread set of “Citywide NC Election Procedures,” which even the “readers” didn't seem to understand.
So, it was not surprising that the NCRC (Neighborhood Council Review Commission) thought the NCs wanted relief and asked the City Clerk to step up and help them.
However, consider the following:
1. When was the last time you saw an increased involvement of a City Agency make things easier?
2. Do you, fellow NC Stakeholders, really want the changes which will be imposed by the City Clerk?
3. Don't you realize that the “real work” of elections is the eliciting of candidates, the campaigning and the outreach to voters. All the City Clerk can do is the “paper work.”
4. If the City Clerk gets involved, that office can only help us with elections, every other year, staring in 2010.
a. This means that current board members may have to or may take the opportunity to serve for an “extra” two to four years without being subjected to an election.
b. This means that the practice of replacing half or a third of a NC's board members each year will no longer be possible. The opportunity of “new” members learning from “old” members, a process which helps support a smooth flow of management, will no longer be possible.
c. This means that the ByLaws of all NCs will have to be changed to fit the “new” schedule of the City Clerk.
5. There has been no real permission given to a NC that wants to opt out of City Clerk involvement or even a NC that wants to “use” the City Clerk in those years when that office is “working” and hold its own election in the other so-called “non-City Clerk” years.
Our NC lives are already complicated enough. I do not see any real simplification or any increased efficiency or even any “relief” by engaging the City Clerk in NC elections.
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