I must admit this about Travis Mitchell: the mayor’s not afraid to stick his neck out. And, off in the distance, I can detect the sound of axes sharpening.
Although I doubt somehow all of them are his ideas, the mayor’s name is the only one attached to a single item on Tuesday’s city council agenda that includes a number of proposed changes to the city’s charter. And, I must admit, for the most part, I think these changes make sense. All except one. There’s one I adamantly oppose and will be more than happy to march to the designated voting location and put a big black X — even if it’s an electronic big black X — in the "NO" box connected to this idea. And it’s probably not the one you think. It’s probably not even the other one you think.
The two proposals I’m figuring will raise the most ire and opposition from the usual band of storm troopers are the ones that will allow the council to set its own compensation level and the one that removes the requirement that the city manager must live inside the city limits. Both of those changes make perfect sense to me — in fact, I have been an advocate of that second one for a long time and was even considering lobbying for a spot on the next charter review commission just so I could try up close and personal to eradicate that requirement from the city’s books. Of course, it would be nice if the city manager lived inside the city limits of Kyle and I would have no problem if the council tried to include that stipulation as part of an employment contract with any future city manager. But to make it a part of the city’s constitution simply goes too far. Every reason someone could come up with to say the city manager should live within the city limits could also be made — with even greater conviction and persuasiveness — for the police chief. But there’s no requirement for the police chief to live within the city limits. And I’d love to hear from anyone who reads this who has a job that stipulates where they are required to reside. A hotel manager is not required to live in the hotel he/she manages. And, as Americans, we are supposed to enjoy certain freedoms and, although, contrary to popular opinion, freedom of choice, per se, is not enshrined in constitutional law, it is usually assumed as one of the rights Americans possess and enjoy and is usually defined as "an individual's opportunity and autonomy to perform an action selected from at least two available options, unconstrained by external parties." That specifically means a charter provision requiring the city manager to live within the city limits of Kyle is not only arbitrary, it is a clear violation of that definition of freedom of choice. So get rid of it.
The only way this provision could be considered fair is if the city actually provided a residence for the city manager, like Gracie Mansion, the official residence of the mayor of New York City. And, whaddya know, the city a couple of years ago realized the folly of that charter provision and tried to establish an official residence for the city manager (and, of course, all future city managers) but the town’s lynch mob, which simply didn’t get it, swarmed all over City Hall and scared the council away from really considering the idea. I imagine that same mob might form again. I only hope this time the council members can display a little more courage, a modicum of backbone.
That compensation provision of the charter — the one that stipulates individual council members receive a stipend of $100 a month and the mayor getting $200 — was written into the charter close to two decades ago, back when the city’s population and its council oversight concerns were one-tenth of what they are today. Back then that amount seemed about right for a group of fellas to get together for no more than an hour or so twice a month to take care of all the city’s business. Today, the job is far more labor intensive, far more time-consuming. The current charter does give the council the prerogative to "appoint a citizen committee not more than every three years to review the monthly compensation" and it goes on to say this committee "may recommend the council approve a reasonable adjustment to the monthly compensation." However, as Mayor Mitchell pointed out when I asked him about the proposed changes, if such a committee was formed and if such a committee did recommend a change in the monthly compensation, that change "would actually create a conflict within the charter, because the founding document still called only for the specific ceremonial stipend."
Now, to be clear, the suggested change in the charter does not give the council a raise in pay. As Mayor Mitchell put it: "It merely creates the mechanism for the council to publicly discuss what they think is appropriate."
What the proposal specifically says is "Each member of the council shall receive as compensation for their services the salary established by ordinance adopted after two public hearings." In other words, council compensation levels would be set exactly the same way as the fiscal year budget. The proposed new language goes on to say "Members of the City Council shall also be entitled to reimbursement for all necessary and approved expenses incurred in the performance of their official duties. There shall be provided in each annual city budget an amount for the expenses of the mayor and for each council member. The city council by ordinance shall provide a method for determining what expenses are reimbursable and what requirements must be met to receive reimbursement."
By no stretch of the imagination is this a novel approach. Section 3.04 of the San Marcos City Charter reads: "City council compensation shall be set in a public forum by ordinance of the city council; and they shall be entitled to all necessary expenses incurred in the performance of their official duties. There shall be provided in each annual city budget an amount for the expenses of the mayor and of each council member. The mayor and the members of the city council shall be reimbursed for the amounts so provided for in the annual city budget for their actual official city business expenses. The city council by resolution or ordinance shall provide for a means of determining what expenses are reimbursable and what requirements must be met for reimbursement." Sound familiar?
"At the end of the day, if council approves, the proposal will go before the voters," the mayor said. "I have long held the belief that council compensation should be set publicly, transparently, relative to the work involved, and in such a way as to minimize the impact of compensation as a deciding factor for whether or not someone runs for council. In other words, the wage should not be so much that a member of our community is incentivized to run because of the wage, and not so little that a member of our community is dis-incentivized to run because of the wage.
"As Kyle's population has reached nearly 50,000 residents, the work required of council has never been higher," Mitchell told me. "To serve the residents effectively, council must often devote 15-20 hours per week, often during the middle of the day, with the mayor's workload being even higher. The charter is worded in such a way that council cannot easily adjust their compensation to even a conservative level, and that creates a strong dis-incentive for the average working-class resident to consider serving."
I must admit I did have some questions about the recommendation to eliminate the requirement for council members to have at least a 12-hour notice of a special meeting, but Mayor Mitchell informed me that "the Open Meetings Act requires 72 hours public notice for special meetings" and, as a result, "our 12-hour threshold is below state requirements and is therefore obsolete."
The proposed change I have a problem with, the one I will definitely vote against if it makes to the ballot in November, is the one to eliminate transportation services from the list of providers required to seek a franchise to operate within the city. One of the many things that have been blatantly obvious during the four years I have lived in Kyle is that our city government bends over at the waist to accommodate Buda Taxi, Whatever Buda Taxi wants, Buda Taxi gets. It’s a simple as that. What this amounts to is the city once again carrying Buda Taxi’s water. The mayor actually admitted as much when he told me the reason behind this suggestion: "The charter currently calls for transportation services to receive a franchise license from the city. Ride-sharing does not fall under this mandate. The evolution of ride-sharing services means companies like Uber and Lyft are now the predominant transportation service in Kyle. Since we cannot require a franchise agreement with these companies, I don't believe we should require taxi services to either."
That to me is exactly like saying "Since we cannot require a franchise agreement with DIRECTV, I don’t believe we should require one of Spectrum either."
The first reason I oppose this is simply because two different companies using a different method to deliver a similar, if not identical service, doesn’t mean the companies should be regarded as identical, even if they are competing. Perhaps "taxi services" (read that "Buda Taxi") should simply change its business model and evolve into a ride sharing company instead of begging for a government bailout, which is exactly what this charter change would be.
But there’s a bigger, more important reason I oppose this change and it relates to one of my main criticisms about policy decision-making not only at the council level but on many of the other city boards and commissions as well (including the one, Planning & Zoning, on which I am a member). The decisions are based on a snapshot of the city as it is today without any regard to what the city may and, most likely will, be in the future. Today, much to the dismay of a small group of extremely vocal residents, this city cannot economically support a public mass transportation system of any sort. Such a system probably won’t even be economically viable by the year 2050 when the city is expected to reach a population of 100,000. But it will be getting a lot closer by then. Now, there is absolutely no way — what with all the mobility transformations taking place at such a rapid rate — we can predict today what form that mass transportation system might take or what, if any, public infrastructure this system will infringe upon. Nevertheless, it would be criminal right now to simply assume any kind of a mass transportation system would not need to depend on some form of municipal infrastructure which is exactly what you’re doing if you are removing transportation services from the list of service providers that, in the words of the Kyle Charter, are "using the public streets or property within the city to provide service."
Back to that charter governing our neighbors to the south. The San Marcos charter, the one that seems to be the inspiration for the proposed compensation change on Tuesday’s agenda, requires a franchise for, among other entities, any "public service" company, which is defined in the San Marcos charter as "any company, individual, partnership, corporation or other entity recognized by law that uses the city's streets, alleys, highways or other public property to carry out its principal purposes, including but not limited to public utilities, commercial railway or street railway services, public transit services, solid waste collection, and vehicles for hire."
That seems the right way to go.
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