Do you feel that our current at large system for City Council seats works or should we look at having four single member district seats and two at large seats in addition to the mayors seat?
Monday, April 21, 2008
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Information, perspective and discussion on quality of life in the Brazos Valley
5 comments:
College Station tends to be rather homogeneous. I'm not sure that this would accomplish a lot other than encouraging council members to focus on parts of the city rather than the big picture. I don't perceive that one part of town is getting preferential treatment over another. Maybe when we are a little larger this will be more of an issue.
The eastside neighborhoods have totally controlled elections the last 2 years. The only traffic study done was for eastside neighborhoods. College Station has no minority council representation at all. If college students ever actually voted in mass they could elect every council seat based on the pitiful voter turnout. These facts all underscore the need for balanced representation for all areas of town. It would ensure minority representation, minimize the student influence, and ensure that neighborhoods are not ignored in favor of the most politically active ones.
If I thought that it would result in minority representation, I would be all for single member districts. But if we were to have four districts, I cannot imagine being able to draw a district that would result in minority representation.
I have never seen students vote in large enough numbers to make a difference. This election will be telling. But the student issue is the one point that makes sense in considering single member districts. Until this election cycle I would not have considered that as a means of restricting student power but enhancing it. Unfortunately, students are diffused in the community. But at least with them, it would be possible to create a district that would probably give them a seat. I don't ever see that happening, especially after what has gone on in this election cycle with students being used as pons for other peoples' political maneuvering. I'm an advocate for the city doing more to involve students in decision making, but I am no longer an advocate for student representation on council.
I just don't see the East side people as wielding undue influence. Their influence comes from grassroots involvement and community effort. That is the last thing that we should discourage.
I can well imagine that the developers, having failed with the students, will next try to break up the neighborhood blocs with single member districts. But that is not likely to work for a couple of reasons. First, they will not have the votes to pull it off and second, it is not just the East Side. My neighborhood on the south side is just as adamantly opposed to their tactics as the folks on the East side are.
I agree with Hugh's statements. The other annon says that the eastside is over-represented?? The Mayor is a Pebble Creekian as is Rusink. Scotti is a Raintreenian, Gay is a Southwood Valleyite. McIlhaney is a Sandstoinian, Crompton is a Foxfirian and Massey is a Brandon Heightsite.
I think it is a fair spread. If you count Pebble Creek as an east side neighborhood and paint them with the same brush as the Woodcreekians and Foxfireians then OK the east is over-represented. Scotti lives in an eastside neighborhood but he is a pro-developer guy. I can assure you that there are ample pro-development people living in Woodcreek, Emerald Forest and Foxfire.
These candidates, like our community, are divided along lines not related to geography. It is beginning to look like there is one group who has an economic agenda and another who is against anyone with an economic agenda.
Hmmm? I will resist that categorization. As one who might easily be grouped with those who appear to be against an economic agenda, let me be perfectly clear, while the agenda that I have for my community is much more heavily driven by quality of life than quantity of business, I reject the idea that economics is not a large part of the considerations that we need to have for our community.
In fact economics is a large part of the disagreement that I have with the developer candidates. The economic vitality of our community cannot be measured in numbers of building permits. A wise economic outlook focuses on a broader cross section of our business community than just construction and development, and it focuses on broader spectrum of time than what is contained in a building cycle.
This myopic view (to borrow an expression from the opposition) is deleterious to our overall economy and to our quality of life. For example, sprawl development has a negative impact on tourism, which is one of the most beneficial segments of our economy. Also sprawl tends to encourage a higher percentage of formula businesses that ship three times more money out of our local economy than do local businesses that tend to stay put in their central locations.
So you see, economics, just as much as quality of life, is reason to vote for the citizen candidates. The only people who benefit economically from the developers agenda are the developers. And it is worth noting that not everyone in the development and real estate community sides with the candidates that are being supported by some in that community.
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