18 September 2007

More CSC Cut and Paste

What does the Charter Study Commission think of Hillsborough's current form of government - the Township Committee? They conducted many interviews of current and past members of our own Committee and spent many meetings discussing the strengths and weaknesses of Hillsborough's 236 year old government form.

The following list of "pluses and minuses" is taken from the chart created by the CSC and displayed at their meetings. It is copied and pasted here from the Hillsborough Charter Study web site.

Township Committee - Pluses

- Simple; Close to the People; Accessible
- Make Changes Every Year via Annual Elections
- Small Government, Small Number of Elected Officials
- Few Layers of Government
- Have It Already - Know What We Have, Don’t Have To Change
- Easiest Access and Easiest to Understand by Residents


Township Committee - Minuses

- Mayor Not Elected By People
- No Checks and Balances; No Separation of Powers
- No Chief Executive - Limited Powers of Mayor
- No Initiative & Referendum
- Annual Elections Detracts From Governing
- Unclear Responsibilities & Accountabilities
- New Mayor Every Year - Inconsistent Governing; Poor Attention for Large Issues and Long Term Goals
- New Department Liaisons Every Year - Confuses Dept Heads; Inconsistent Direction; Learning Curve
- Closest Faulkner Act Form is Small Municipality and NJ State Law Says Hillsborough is Too Large to Adopt That Form
- Can’t Choose Non-Partisan
- Heavy Workload for Committeepersons

These lists are a good start, but could use some editing. For instance:
  1. Are the annual elections a plus or a minus? - this appears on both lists!
  2. The mayor IS elected by the people, just not directly. The president of the United States is also not directly elected - remember 2000?
  3. There is a misunderstanding of what liaisons do. The department heads report to the Administrator. Liaison duties are divided among township committee members so that each member can be made aware of what is happening in the various departments by consulting their fellow committeemen.
  4. The testimony of the township committee was that their workload was NOT heavy - but in essence this is purely subjective.
  5. Responsibilities ARE clear, and people ARE accountable.
  6. No checks and balances /no separation of powers - this one is key. To find out why, read tomorrow.

6 comments:

  1. I can agree with most of your additions, and in fact seeing the list out of context here, it certainly doesn't seem to "fit an agenda" like so many imply - in fact, it seems to serve quite the opposite purpose.

    But again, recalling how it was generated, I can see why it looks that way. For example, if someone felt that the TC form was "close to the people," then that phrase went on the list. Every opinion was fair game, and was included.

    And that partly explains why an item such as yearly elections appears twice. Because one person may see it as a positive, yet another person sees it as a negative; therefore both opinions were included. In fact, one person can see both benefits and detriments to yearly elections. So on both sides it goes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Why

    Were my comments on Wards and a full time mayor deleted? They clearly observed the rules of this Blog, they were factual and germane to the original post.

    Clearly, this is the problem with this type of communications, which is unfortunately, a form more and more Americans are depending on for their information.

    Over the course of history hundreds of thousands of brave American solders have died to preserve our freedoms, free speech being the most precious freedom of all. Today, it appears all of those deaths may have been in vane as clearly our right to free speech can now be simply controlled by the press of a tiny delete key, erasing all record of one's speech, as if it never was!

    But why complain? No one will see this post either. It’s just too easy to pretend it was never written or said as I’m sure this too will be deleted shortly. Suddenly I feel like a cow happily being lead to slaughter, unaware the path I’ve been placed on leads to my own demise, even as others tell me it’s for my own good.

    I’ll leave you with a few quotes from men much greater then I. Perhaps you’ll think about them before you whack the delete key on this post too!

    “The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.” __Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823.

    “The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers.”__Thomas Jefferson to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785.


    "There is no question that we have failed to live up to the dreams of the founding fathers many times and in many places. Sometimes we do better than others. But all in all, the one thing we must be on guard against is thinking that because of this, the system has failed. The system has not failed. Some human beings have failed the system." -- Ronald Reagan June 21, 1973

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  3. 08844 - Your comments were not deleted - I can only assume there was a glitch with Blogger that prevented your comment from being posted to On Hillsborough.

    I am the only one with the ability to delete comments - and I have done this one time. On June 13, VAL accidentally posted two identical comments, so I deleted one. To see what happens when a comment is deleted, look here

    http://cnhillsborough.blogspot.com/2007/06/clap-on-clap-off.html

    As you can see, a notation was made that the comment was deleted. There is no notation for a deleted comment in any of my recent blog posts.

    Also, each time a comment is made to the blog, a copy of that comment is sent immediately to my personal email. I received no email with your missing comment.

    Conclusion: Your comment never made it to the blog, and for that I am sorry, and hope you will post again.

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  4. You deleted my comments? Oh, now you're in for it!!! LOL

    ReplyDelete
  5. You deleted my comments? Oh, now you're in for it!!! LOL

    ReplyDelete
  6. You deleted my comments? Oh, NOW YOU'VE HAD IT!!!! *yuk yuk yuk!!!*

    ReplyDelete