Editor, The Spotlight:
The mayor undermines the city charter when he moves to appoint all the members of the city Comprehensive Plan Review Committee, and he contradicts the values he invoked in his January State of the City Address of “honor, responsibility, accountability, integrity, sincerity (and) cooperation.”
To behave with honor means to behave honestly. Instead, the mayor speaks out of both sides on his mouth. In January, he extended “an offer to the council,” to recommend “one member each to the committee,” but then right after the speech, he told the Saratoga Wire that he has already picked the 11 committee members and that he would not necessarily accept their recommendations. Further backtracking, he has recently appointed all 13 members.
The mayor closed his speech by employing one of the oldest logical fallacies in the debate handbook, the red herring, when he accused City Council members of partisanship in their objection to these appointments. The City Council is not objecting to his plan because he is a Republican, they are objecting because no democratic government supports unilateral decision making. This move, coupled with his additional proposal to appoint a new Charter Review Commission with the express purpose of creating a strong mayor form of government, is a naked power grab that is dishonorable, irresponsible, unaccountable, insincere and uncooperative.
Lale Davidson
Saratoga Springs