Proposed legislation seeking to ban city employees from:

contributing money to candidates for City offices

carrying political petitions to get City candidates on the ballot

actively working on political campaigns for City candidates

Was sent to Committee on a 5 to 4 vote.

What do you think about this legislation? In a recent political mailing Sam Hoyt complained that 70 City workers carried petitions for his opponent. Thousands of people work for the City, most like many people could care less about carrying political petitions or contributing money. One of the biggest problems we have is the lack of interest and lack of participation in our political process. We need more people to become involved as candidates and as supporters of candidates.

If someone feels strongly about an issue or a candidate should their employment prevent them from participating in an election?

Some interesting points about the proposed legislation:

It would ban City workers from running for political office. Most office holders believe the best race is no race. This legislation would eliminate thousands of people from being a candidate for office.

The legislation exempts the 50 or so appointees of the Mayor. If you are seeking to eliminate people from engaging in politics wouldn't you want to start with the top officials who run police, fire, economic development, law department and the budget?

The legislation exempts employees appointed by the Common Council. While some Council Members are very concerned about political activity by city workers they are not willing to apply the same rules to themselves.

If people are serious about eliminating politics in city government a good place to start would be to require the hiring of a professional City Manager with the authority to fill top level positions. Joe Golombek has raised the idea of a City Manager in the past and brought the idea up again at the Council meeting.

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