"One Person, One Vote," what ever happened to that concept?
We have received a couple of pieces of email stating that our current Aldermen are representative of our community. Let me show you a photo that relays a little bit of information graphically so that we can all see exactly what our situation "looks" like.
We have also heard that as the population of this city grows and fluctuates, it will eliminate the need to re-apportion because it will all "even out in the end."
Well, let's go back to a graph of the population in the year 2015...
We have also heard from a couple of people that the city should look at the issue in 5-10 years. Now, why would there be a need to fix this in 5 or 10 years when there is no need to fix it now? The truth is that there is a problem now, and there will continue to be a problem in 5 or 10 years.
This issue is not about the stewardship of our past and current leaders. There have been an awful lot of things done VERY well in this city for a number of years. This issue is about our community leaders reflecting our growing population now and in the future. This whole "movement" is about our population being closer to the belief of "ONE person, ONE vote."
With the stipulation in our city government that only allows for two aldermen to reside in each ward, how exactly do we consider the "representation" from each ward as being equal? We cannot consider it equal because it is not.
"One person, One Vote"
Monday, February 20, 2006
One Person, One Vote
Posted by Gorilla in the Corner at 11:34 AM
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IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: The information on this website is a series of personal opinions and is not meant to reflect an official position by the City of Spring Hill.
12 comments:
are you saying have all aldermen run at large?
Magilla @ 13:29,
The oath that the aldermen currently take to "represent all of the citizens of Spring Hill" wouldn't change, so all of the aldermen would still represent all of the citizens (I think that's what you mean by one person, eight votes.)
I'm all for addressing the 'running un-opposed' issue, as well as the 'limit the pool of candidates' issue which is what our current system does now.
Currently, if a person has an issue with an alderman that lives in a different ward, do they have the opportunity to hold that alderman accountable? Some have said that a person is able to hold that alderman accountable by finding another person to run against that alderman.
That is not holding an alderman accountable.
That system is placing the burden on a person to find a candidate willing to run who lives in that alderman's ward, instead of giving that person an opportunity to run against that alderman.
4 Aldermen elected by the wards they live in to ensure that all geographical areas of the city have an alderman on the board, along with 4 Aldermen voted at large (top 4 vote getters, as you have mentioned) seems to me to be a very fair system.
What about in the U.S. Senate? 2 Senators for Texas, Florida, etc... and 2 Senators for Wyoming, South Dakota, etc... who have so many less people.
Would you consider some type of forum for the candidates for County Commission running in the area?
Prior to the Seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution ratified in 1913, Senators were appointed by the state legislatures.
US Congressional districts are required to be redrawn after each decennial National Census to ensure that each district is relatively equal to all others in population (one person, one vote.) Each state has at least one representative, even if its population would not warrant one.
Anon @ 14:42
The US system of government has the House of Reps and the Senate. As you know, the Senate's purpose is to represent geographical issues (which is why it has 2 reps from each state). The House of Reps is proportional to population and the number of reps per state changed periodically.
Currently Spring Hill has just the Senate portion of our national system. That is why I believe that the best answer to this issue lies in the 4 and 4 solution. One Alderman is elected from each ward (representing geography) and 4 Aldermen are elected at large (representing population).
This would allow for people to run against each other based on ideas and not based entirely of location and timing.
Anon @ 14:45
I would love to have an area on the site for all of those running for County Commission. We will be looking at creating that section later this week.
Thank you for your interest.
If that alderman runs unopposed (which 5 of 8 have), it is kind of tough to hold them accountable. If aldermen truly ran "at large," you would be able to vote for anyone in the pool of candidates that best represents your opinion on a given set of criteria. Then you would see candidates running on ideas and accountable to voters. Currently that option does not exist.
Maybe I am not understanding your argument Magilla. What exactly would you change in our current system? You say that you are for re-apportionment, and against candidates running unopposed, but I can't figure out what exactly you would want to change? I hate to be difficult, but please try to walk us through your system again.
Thanks!
The county commission has 2 commissioners per district. Some districts cover a small portion of a city and some districts cover much of the countryside based on population. And as the county grows so should the districts be changed to reflect the population being represented. In other words, if in order to divide representatives up by population means putting one in a district covering a small but heavily populated area and one in a larger area but less populated, well that just makes sense.
The County Commission does have two commissioners per district but in the Third District (which includes Spring Hill) we can only seem to get one of the two to acknowledge that Spring Hill even exists. Talk about a lack of representation.
Let's hear from some of those County Commission candidates about how they might actually represent the interests of the citizens of Spring Hill
Allaboutcommunity said @ 8:34:
I don't know what you are talking about when you say they don't know Spring Hill exists. Please give some examples.
From the Tennessean, September 1999:
SPRING HILL OFFICIALS 'STUNNED' AT COMMISSIONER'S COMMENT
Mayor Ray Williams and the city's aldermen are miffed about Williamson County Commissioner Judy Hayes' comment that Spring Hill is not a municipality in Williamson County.
"It just blew the board away," Williams said of Hayes' remark, made at Spring Hill's Board of Mayor and Alderman meeting last week.
"I was stunned," said City Administrator Ken York. "Here we were talking about our urban growth plan, and she said Spring Hill wasn't a municipality in Williamson County. Wooee."
The article continues...
"Fifty percent, or 50 cents on the dollar, in the commercial area goes to the county of origin for purposes of education," Hayes said, adding that it costs about $3,300 per year to educate a child in Williamson County. "But since Spring Hill doesn't have the commercial growth in Williamson County, we do not have that. All we get from the Spring Hill citizen residents would be their property taxes.
"The high residential area in Williamson County with no commercial base in Williamson County from Spring Hill has put a real drain, to some degree, on our capital growth because we have to build new schools.
"That's the long way of saying what I meant by that," Hayes said of her remark that raised aldermen's ire. "And they jumped before I got time to explain anything further."
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Well Allaboutcommunity, you asked for an example.
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