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Again, with the at-large seats

2:09 pm on May 14th, 2008 by Dave Segal

UPDATE: RIFuture’s talking about them too.

Ian has a post on them today.

I empathize with the concerns of the proponents of at-large seats — In particular, they’d like to reduce our 15 wards to 10, while adding 5 at-large seats.

The presence of at-large members will free the City Council as a whole from the constraints of ward politics, encourage big-picture thinking, and provide additional avenues for citizens to express concerns about citywide issues. Furthermore, having several at-large seats on the Council will give the legislative branch more opportunities to give input to the executive branch on policies and actions that will affect the entire city, thus creating a better balance in visioning and decision-making.

But this is a BAD idea, unless seats are allocated proportionally. Ari and I wrote about these issues here. Two quick points about the 10-5 plan:

  • It’d mean more representation by rich, white, high-turnout portions of town, and therefore more influence by moneyed interests.
  • The city would be setting itself up for a civil rights lawsuit, as Ward 11 — the only seat held by an African American — would be chopped up into majority white and Latino areas. A city that is 15% African American would likely be left with no African American on the city council. (Have we really not learned the lessons of the redistricting of 2002, which pitted Sens Pichardo and Walton against one another?)

I’ll write about all of this in more detail later.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 2:09 pm and is filed under Activism, Civil Rights, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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3 Responses to “Again, with the at-large seats”

  1. Nathan Says:
    May 15th, 2008 at 10:29 am

    All your arguments are about a lack of proportionality for the at-large elections. Okay, so let’s do 10-5 with proportional representation. Sound good?

  2. Dave Segal Says:
    May 15th, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    sounds better. but try talking some others into it…

  3. Cliff Says:
    May 16th, 2008 at 5:03 pm

    Dear friends,

    I have introduced this 5+10 ordinance to create at-large/citywide council seats because it makes sense for Providence. I offered the ordinance based on the hard work of the 2002 Charter Review Commission, which found the following:

    • “The presence of at-large members will free the City Council as a whole from the constraints of ward politics, encourage big-picture thinking, and provide additional avenues for citizens to express concerns about citywide issues.”

    • “Providence currently differs with many other communities across the state and the nation on the issue of at-large city council members. Of the major cities in Rhode Island, only Providence and Warwick do not have at-large council members (in most smaller towns, all council members are elected at large); and among seven major New England cities, Providence stands alone in its lack of at-large representation.”

    • “Having several at-large seats on the Council will give the legislative branch more opportunities to give input to the executive branch on policies and actions that will affect the entire city, thus creating a better balance in visioning and decision-making. Reducing the number of wards to ten and introducing five at-large seats will maintain the Council at its current size… Research indicates that this two-to-one allocation is consistent with common practice in other large municipalities.”

    The 5+10 Coalition is a diverse group of citizens supporting and actively promoting this proposal, and we have found a very broad degree of consensus that at-large council members are needed. Public hearings on this issue will soon be scheduled so that we can create a model of citywide council elections that we can agree on. Many excellent ideas have been suggested, including using some form of proportional representation to choose the citywide members. Perhaps another ratio of ward to at-large seats would make sense. We should be willing to hear each other out.

    I am confident that we, the people of Providence, can agree on a proposal for citywide council members that is both fair and progressive, and will make ours a more forward thinking city government.

    Let’s work together toward a plan that fair and sensible, and put that proposal on the ballot in November.

    Sincerely,
    Cliff Wood

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