The city of Ithaca is weighing changes to its charter, with a Charter Revision Commission is re-examining the foundational document.
The group will propose changes, which will then go to Ithaca voters in November.
WSKG’s Aurora Berry spoke with Clyde Lederman, former Ithaca alderperson and current secretary of the Charter Revision Commission, to learn more about the process.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Aurora Berry: What is the purpose of the Ithaca City Charter, and why is it important to the folks who live here?
Clyde Lederman: That's a great question. The city charter is a lot like our city's Constitution. It sets out for city government, it assigns powers, duties and responsibilities, and it provides the basic structure of our government, whether it's how many elected officials do we have, and when are they elected, to how they exercise their responsibilities and what sort of administrative powers are given to city staff. So it provides a general framework for the operation of city government. Of course, Ithaca has a population of 33,000 people, and for this year, has a budget of $112 million and provides all sorts of services to citizens. So it's sort of setting the structure by which that happens and those decisions about those services are made.
AB: And why was this the right time to revisit the charter for Ithaca?
CL: One of the important things the charter does is set out the relationship between the common council, the city council, and the staff. And the city moved from a council-mayor to a council-manager system of governance.
We still have a mayor, who is the political leader of the city, but we created the role of a city manager.
And what this was about was saying there were some aspects of the transition that worked well and there were others that were difficult and didn't work as well. And it's about figuring out, how do we kind of complete that transition and make sure this sort of new model of government works, and clean up parts of the charter that had sort of stood in the way where responsibilities were unclear and making sure that we have a government that's really responsive to the needs of our citizens.
AB: You mentioned there being some difficulties in that transition. I'm wondering how that ended up showing up in the process.
CL: I think there was a lot of what I would call role ambiguity between the council, the mayor and the manager, and there have been some real governance challenges we've seen in recent years. I'm sure you saw the article recently in the Ithaca Voice, the state released an audit that shows that the city has been sort of well behind on its audits and best financial practices. So it's just about making sure, we ensure there's a line of accountability between the voters, through the council and the mayor, and through the many talented civil servants who make up the city staff.
There was a lot of ambiguity. It was very much, I think, sort of “control F” replacement in the charter. We want to modernize it to make sure it's very clear who does what and what those relationships look like, and who has responsibilities. So we can make sure there's, you know, an accountable process for decision making.
AB: How can Ithacans who aren’t on the commission engage with the process of updating the charter, either in your initial meetings or later on at the ballot box?
CL: So there are a couple of ways that can happen. We have general public comment, we have monthly meetings. I think we're going to be going to meetings twice a month so folks can come and provide testimony and comments and voice their concerns.
We're going to be sending out surveys about particular issues. For instance, we're considering changing, perhaps reducing the number of council members. Right now, there are 11, so we're gonna be sending out surveys about that sort of question.
One specific section we are preparing, [that] we're going to have them open for particular testimony from, that we're trying to change, maybe some hiring practices in the city to make it more efficient to hire department heads. Right now, it's sort of a very long and prescribed process, and we've had a number of vacancies there. So we may say, do we want feedback on this? Does this seem like a sensible change, where the public and the council still feels like it has the right amount of input? So we're going to be providing opportunities for testimony from that.
We're going to do a couple of open house workshops, more over the summer, when the document’s closer to being finalized. But right now, hearing from folks about their concerns is great. You know, with the online form, folks can come to the meetings, the contact information for the commissioners are all online. So the more we hear from the public, the better the document will be.