Commission-packing and city districts? The time is never | Opinion

Much ink has been spilled about divisiveness at City Hall of late. The need to bring Tallahassee together has been emphasized by observers of our town’s local government and politics.

So it’s been jarring and confusing to hear both mayoral candidates recently express support for a City Commission-packing scheme to divide and dilute our city’s political representation even further.

The commission-packing plan is a radical idea that no one is asking for — besides die-hard Republicans and establishment special interests who have lost big after throwing tons of resources into electioneering, and now want to change the rules.

But who in their right mind supports giving the mayor’s office even more power, a natural consequence of adding more commissioners?

Certainly, fostering understanding between folks from Killearn and South City won’t be improved by imposing more political lines between them. Nor would creating new elected officials accountable to only one side of town.

Slouching towards Jacksonville — where ineffective local council members are hamstrung in their ability to serve their district-bound constituents’ needs — would be a step backwards in creating consensus-driven local policy.

Commission-packing would also drive political gridlock that pits neighborhood against neighborhood with more artificial bureaucracy between the public’s will and city decision-making, and contribute to “Mayor creep”: centralized executive overreach like we saw at play in Jacksonville’s very recent devastating JEA privatization scandal.

After the political trauma Tallahassee has suffered from being repeatedly divided by state lawmakers, diminishing minority political participation, more politicians haggling over their own political lines is the last thing we need.

I first heard this proposal from one of Tallahassee’s most rancorous partisans on right-wing talk radio, who called the Northeast “a separate city” outside of Tallahassee.

Though that mindset clearly belies proponents’ “take my ball and go home” attitude, 26 years after Tallahassee’s “leadership mayor” experiment led by Scott Maddox, the question must be asked:

Why? What problem are proponents really trying to solve?

Half the occupants of City Commission Seat 4 have been indicted on federal corruption charges since the directly-elected mayoral seat was christened. There is simply no justification to increase the mayor’s power relative to his or her colleagues.

In fact, I would venture that a return to the rotating mayor system that preceded the Scott Maddox era — where so much went sideways in the public’s trust in government — might well be well advised as a prudent check on the infamous ambitions of Tallahassee’s mayoral office.

At-large elections and the council-manager form of government were both reforms in response to “ward politics,” where municipal elected officials controlled their ward with a parochial mindset and didn’t tend to the common public good. We should keep both intact.

Dividing our community in the most literal way is a non-solution in search of a non-existent problem. Electing commissioners responsive to every corner of Tallahassee is absolutely crucial to building a city consensus that works for everyone.

Curing what ails our body politic starts with electing better politicians — not more of them.

Fortunately, that’s starting to happen. Recent results have found city voters largely rejecting a status quo that’s lost its mandate, and electing more grassroots, independent-minded leaders.

Let’s focus on where we can take this progress under new leadership into our bicentennial, with more collegial leadership that will unite us — not draw Tallahassee into even more political contests.

Ryan Ray is a City Commission aide to Commissioner Jeremy Matlow and a former state Capitol reporter with the News Service of Florida.

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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Commission-packing and city districts? The time is never | Opinion