Hudson community activist Peter Frank drafted the following open letter, in which he shares his thoughts about the flaws in the proposed City Charter revision:

 

by Peter Frank

I am a longtime proponent of the council/manager model for city government. The recent Hudson Charter Change proposal, which would adopt that model, has done a service by raising this important and complicated issue. Sadly, I cannot support it, and I urge you to join me in opposition.

As written, it preserves dysfunctional and antiquated governance structures; gives unprecedented power to a single unelected individual; and offers no guidance for an effective transition from our current mayor/council structure.

On their website, the group that made this proposal identifies fourteen examples of other New York cities that have successfully adopted council/manager government structure. All share fundamentally similar charters that incorporate good governance practices espoused by organizations like the National Civic League and that align with New York State recommendations. But this proposal is not consistent with these fine examples.

It ignores widely respected best practices, and even several State recommendations, and would leave Hudson saddled with confusing and outdated structures that have no place in a modern city:

• They leave in place an elected treasurer with no required credentials. Every other Charter they cite has an appointed chief financial officer. If the goal is to improve Hudson’s finances, this alone is disqualifying.

• It preserves our inefficient two-year terms for elected offices, even though four-year terms are recommended by New York State, and have been adopted by every other city whose example they cite.

• They retain our archaic commissioner system which would perpetuate the current dysfunctional chain of command between the city’s leadership and its department heads. Nothing remotely resembling Hudson’s bizarre commissioner system exists elsewhere in New York. The authors left the commissioners out of the organizational chart they share on their website. They should have done the same in their proposal.

They also devise a confusing new structure that exists nowhere else. In their proposal, Hudson would have the dubious distinction of being the only council/manager city in New York State with a city manager, a mayor, and a council president. Elsewhere there is either a mayor or a council president, never both; that elected leader presides over meetings and has a vote. It is unclear why the authors thought it would be a good idea to have a mayor who doesn’t have a role in the legislative function of the city. Their proposal just shifts to the city manager all the responsibilities our current charter gives to the mayor—and retains the position of mayor without specifying any role or duties whatsoever for that person. This is not structural reform.

Furthermore, in this proposal, the city manager is solely responsible for every possible executive function formerly held by the mayor. In other cities, the balance of power varies, but elected officials always retain some powers to make appointments to regulatory boards and exercise other administrative duties. Another anomaly of the current proposal is that it gives the city manager veto power over certain financial actions of the Common Council. New York State’s Local Government Handbook states, “The {city} manager…does not have a veto power over council actions”, and in my research I found not a single instance of a city manager having any such veto power. No other council/manager charter presents such an extreme redistribution of power.

Other flaws in the proposal may be unintentional oversights. But if it is approved, this sloppiness would complicate a transition to a council/manager system. To correct these flaws, we would almost certainly have to immediately undertake another process of revising the city charter. One example: the mayor would be the only elected official ineligible for health insurance. Another: the financial plan for how their proposal would be funded, as explained on their website, assumes that all the current salaries in the mayor’s office could be reallocated. In fact, much of that payroll is grant funded, non-transferrable and potentially non-recurring.

Lastly, the complexities of a transition are barely addressed. The Charter Change website says that the transition will begin in January of 2026. This is incorrect; if it passes in November of this year, changes cannot go into effect until January 2028. Far more problematic, it offers no roadmap for what would certainly be a complex process of transition, nor for who will guide it.

As one example, Hudson is governed by a code which works hand in hand with the charter. Currently the code gives the mayor final authority over countless governmental functions, major and minor, including snow or drought emergencies, sewer regulations, codes of ethics, mass gatherings, and dozens more. The code also stipulates that many appointments are made by the mayor, including to the Historic Preservation Commission, and that the mayor is an ex officio member of certain bodies such as the Hudson Community Development and Planning Authority. Some of these mayoral duties are mandated by the State, but most are not. How, when and by whom would it be decided which of these responsibilities remain with the otherwise undefined and ambiguous person of mayor and which would more rationally transfer to a city manager?

The process this group used also leaves much to be desired. Their proposal is immutable; once they started collecting the signatures required to place it before the Common Council, or if it fails there to place it before the voters in November as a referendum, it could not be modified. In researching Charter Change elsewhere, I consistently found at least some degree of public engagement before a proposal was finalized. Avoiding public input in drafting a referendum proposal is not illegal under the State Constitution, but I could find no other example of a charter reform proposal that was finalized and presented to the public, by a self-selected extra-governmental group, without community input that could have modified it while it was still in draft form.

The Charter Change group has repeatedly said they want to “start a conversation.” But since the text of the proposal is unchangeable, conversation will have no impact on it. That gives us only two choices: vote yes or no. If this proposal makes it to the ballot in November, I must vote no. Please join me in that and then let’s take what we will have learned from this awkward process and work together to create a rational governance model where a city manager will have a fighting chance to succeed.