Al Rodbell on Peak Democracy

We recently added local resident Al Rodbell's thoughtful blog to the blogroll at left.

Mr. Rodbell responded with the following. We agree with Mr. Rodbell's concerns about the Peak Democracy blog purchased by the city council. It is at best a worthless toy, at worst an easily manipulated tool for city insiders and special interest groups to create the illusion of public support for their pet projects.

As for the weak mayor and weak council issue that Mr. Rodbell raises, we agree that the council has been little more than a rubber stamp for City Manager Gus Vina's plans, but we see this as a failure of leadership of the current council, not as a structural problem. Vina serves at the pleasure of the council. His failures and deceptions are theirs. Vina only controls the council because they have abdicated their oversight responsibility.  If the council had the intellectual capacity and the will to challenge Vina, they could.

But let us not bloviate on. Take it away, Al:

Greetings.  Thanks for posting my article Al Rodbell's Blog "Peak Democracy" implementation update as of April

Much of my writing and actions at the council on this issue have been written at different times -- from initial gut reaction, actually better described as revulsion, towards this program; then after further research, and finally now reaching a more comprehensive broader view. There is less anger at the President of the company, Mike Cohen, than focus at our defective city governmental system that allows those such as he to exploit it.

The article in my web site that you feature, the "April update," only briefly described the chain of events that was sparked during by a conversation with one of our most informed citizen advocates who described that initial council meeting. I have now appended links of details, including several articles that critique Peak Democracy, ironically from two opposite directions. One, a short column claiming that Mr. Cohen is not true to his "populist" credentials, that in reality the program is designed to help city hall deflect movements such as Prop A. The other longer one published in "Dissent Magazine" is much deeper, and concludes after tracing the gestation of this commercial entity from a citizen based movement in Berkeley, that such easy-access populism will result in the loss of those few who actually show up at meetings and put their emotional well-being on the line by challenging simplistic damaging council actions.

While seemingly contradictory, they both point out to me how Peak Democracy will exacerbate our problems. Yet, in making my case against a company, I realize that what has to be seriously evaluated is the structure of the City Manager system of local government, which entails part time citizen council members. Our council takes all the heat without concomitant authority- so irrespective of certain bad choices that have been made by them that deserve condemnation, a confrontational tone between council majority and voters is often inevitable.

The upcoming election for Mayor is, upon reflection, an example of both defects of Peak Democracy. It was created by direct democracy's baby, Proposition K, but the public voted on their illusion of what "mayor" means, and not the reality based on our city manager system. Right now the Mayor, while possessing no executive branch authority, does have this indirectly by being the representative of the majority faction, which in the aggregate can discharge a City Manager at will. (It's like the power of a Majority leader or Speaker of the House) This this will no longer necessarily be the case when s/he is independently elected. So, what the public did, based on the assumption that an elected mayor would have more authority, allowed the possibility that s/he will have even less.

I had written the above before the vote on Prop K, but it was only read by a few on my website and those on my personal email list. Elections are populist events, the one time when those few who make great efforts at a legislative body have the same single vote as those who are voting with no real understanding of what each candidate stands for, as I myself do when voting for for county and school board offices.

Describing defects in any complex system such as city government is easy, arriving at preferable, yet possible, solutions is a whole different kettle of fish. So, while I'll continue to try to gather support for derailing the implementation of Peak Democracy, enabling the council to confront Mr. Cohen on the exaggerations of his "salesmanship" -- which should result in cancellation of the contract for the services; this should be an occasion to consider a broader restructuring. If this means adopting a Charter city system, this certainly should be explored. One thing I'm convinced of is while there is no system of government at any level that is bulletproof, just trying to achieve something close can be a useful exercise.