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Oh, SmAlbany!

Daily posts and occasional longer essays about politics, culture, and life in the Capital Region...updated M-F, midmorning


"I write this not as a booster of Albany, which I am, nor an apologist for the city, which I sometimes am, but rather as a person whose imagination has become fused with a single place, and in that place finds all the elements that a man ever needs..." -W. Kennedy, from O Albany!

Jennings to seek charter review

The mayor has undercut the initiative for a ballot based charter review in the fall:
By announcing plans Tuesday to quickly create a charter review commission, the mayor made it possible that it will be his commission's recommendations not those of the Albany Civic Agenda, the petition organizers -- that wind up on the November ballot.

Under state law, if a mayoral charter commission reaches recommendations at least 60 days before the Nov. 8 general election, those proposals trump any competing charter questions offered by a petition drive.
This is a wake up call to all the opponents of the mayor. He's not Paul Clyne. He's got resources, friends, and ruthlessness. But most of all, he's got bravado. When told that the charter commission would block the ballot initiatve, he responded:
"I did not know that. That's interesting," Jennings said after a news conference at which he blasted the efforts of petition organizers, calling their proposal "an unabashed and blatant political initiative" that would manipulate voters "under the guise of good government."
You gotta love bravado like that. But the take-home point here is that the mayor has the power, he doesn't want to give up the power, and he doesn't want anyone voting on the power. As I've posted before, I think a strong mayor is important. But not this strong. Whatever the faults of legislative government, the common council needs to be more than it is now. I hope the ballot initiative gets on the ticket this fall, but i'm not going to hold my breath.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 08, 2005 at 7:47 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

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At 8:57 AM , Blogger Matt said:

Oh, don't read me wrong. This is a total power play by the mayor, and i'm not happy about it. I agree wholeheartedly with what you say. I should probably edit my post to reflect that. My point in the post was that this guy is not going to relinquish anything wihtout a major fight.    



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