Guest Opinion: A Simple Explanation of Charter Amendments

By David Turnoy

Having moved here recently from a small town that seemed to be constantly embroiled in political tumult, I have been a bit surprised by the furor over the Charter Amendments. But because we are going to have to vote on these issues, I have been trying to get enough information to understand them. I have finally come across the simplest explanations I have seen, thanks to Islanders for Better Government. This organization is made up of people from both sides of the political aisle, so I feel pretty comfortable in believing their explanations. For others who may be struggling with these issues, I am sharing a brief summary paraphrasing Islanders for Better Government.

Proposition 1 reduces the number of County Council members from six to three. But instead of each of us voters voting only for our own district councilor and being represented only by that councilor, as it stands now, we will all vote for three councilors who will serve the entire county. It will be required that each of these three councilors comes from a different island (San Juan, Orcas, Lopez/Shaw) so that no one island has a greater say. Councilors will have to campaign county-wide and learn about the various areas and their particular issues, then they will be able to knowledgeably represent all of us.

We currently have an unelected County Administrator who has all the executive authority and thus virtual autonomy, and this has apparently led to some conflict with other elected officials and the Council, primarily in the area of financial administration. Proposition 2 would replace the administrator with a County Manager accountable to the elected Council, while still providing protection for county employees from Council interference.

Proposition 3 would require that all meetings among Councilors, whether all of the Councilors or some of them, be public. Apparently in the past, meetings among less than the whole body of Councilors sometimes took place privately, where legislation was designed without public scrutiny or plans were made to block legislation when the whole Council would meet. Proposition 3 would prevent this.

All three measures increase the power of us citizens by making the governing process more democratic. All the Councilors would be accountable to all of us, the manager would be accountable to the Council, and all decisions would be transparent. I’m sure there are those who would argue against improving our democracy, but it seems to me that these three amendments make sense.