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Dueling Views on Ashland’s City Recorder Vote
Dueling Views on City Recorder Vote
5/5/24
By David Runkel
Ashland voters are being asked this month to approve two changes in the City Charter and while there is no organized opposition to either of them, one of the measures is encountering some head winds.
First, the easy vote. Police Chief Tighe O’Meara also serves as the sergeant of arms to the City Council and must, by provisions of the 1908 charter, be present at all council business meetings. He wants a change to allow him to designate one of his officers to serve in the sergeant of arms role sometimes, or even always.
Second, supporters of the change in the method of choosing the city recorder are hoping that the third time for this issue is a charm. This change would allow the city manager to appoint the recorder instead of having voters elect someone to fill this position. It would also drop the requirement that the recorder be a city resident. City voters rejected two previous attempts to make these changes.
There are two major points of disagreement between supporters and opponents in the role of the recorder today. While supporters argue that it’s a secretarial and record keeping position, opponents point to the recorder’s duties over access to city records and overseeing city elections as being public safeguards. Second, supporters believe having the city manager appoint the recorder will increase professionalism in the role, while opponents believe election provides an independent voice in City Hall.
Former City Administrator Dave Kanner is the leading advocate for this change. He has a long argument for it in the Voters’ Pamphlet mailed to all voters and is one of 17 current and past elected officials and four city administrators who signed a second statement in support. Mayor Tonya Graham and four of the six current councilors favor the change, along with former Mayor Alan DeBoer.
Opponents include Barbara Christensen, Ashland’s longest serving recorder; Eric Navickas, former councilor and current vice chair of the Citizens Budget Committee; and George Kramer, an historic preservation expert and community activist.
“”Past administrations have had no clue about the responsibilities and amount of work in the recorder’s office,” Christensen said. “For instance, as the city election’s officer, the recorder provides a safe environment for everybody thinking about running for office to ask questions just about anything. And, the record keeping role is important in giving every citizen access to public information. Ashland was the first city in Oregon to make records available online. There was push back from staff about control over public documents. It was my biggest accomplishment.”
“Ashland’s City Recorder has always been elected and not under the authority of the City Manager,” Navickas pointed out. “This guarantees that an independent employee who is subject to the voters is a steward of the public records. The office of the recorder therefore works on behalf of the people and the public’s access to information is firmly protected. Access to records and city documents is the hallmark of a sound democratic institution.”
“The proponents of this change will point to professionalism demanded through direct oversight of the City Manager because of a bad experience with a single employee. Terminating a foundational democratic institution due to one incident is simply frivolous, the institution remains sound.
“The actual problem within the recorder’s office has been a lack of staffing and a heavy workload” he said. “Elected or appointed officials will face the same reality with the limited staff under the current realities of budget tightening.”
Kramer also noted the recent controversy over the last elected recorder, Melissa Huhtala, who resigned a year ago.
“A certain segment of Council, and prior city managers, apparently had some issue with the individual the people elected to that role, forced her to resign and are now suggesting that it’s “risky” to leave such a key position up to the voters,” Kramer said. “Frankly, that is BS. One does not change a century of tradition over one person, even if the issues were legit (and we have no way of knowing that they were or not, although my dealings with the former recorder were always handled well).
“I rather expect this is more about power and the Mayor and Administration, resenting the fact that there is an independent, elected voice in City Hall whose job is keep the records and make them available to the public. The recent difficulties in getting information out to the press and others (“Sorry, that requires a FOIA and hours of staff time!) give you some indication of what the Mayor and the City Manager want to see in an ‘appointed’ recorder.”
Arguing for the change in a statement in the Voters’ Pamphlet, the 17 current and former city officials said, “Changing the recorder to a staff position would make the position more responsive and accountable, and would allow the city to recruit and hire the best qualified person from a broader pool of applicants.
“The recorder is not a policy-making position. The recorder is simply the board secretary for the City Council and the administrative keeper of city records. The notion that an elected recorder makes the city more transparent has no basis in fact.
“The current city recorder position is unsupervised, and is thus unchecked with regard to working hours, competency or handling of public records. This measure will provide supervisory oversight for the position,” the 13 elected officials and four former city administrators wrote.
In a separate statement, Kanner said, “The recorder is a secretarial/recordkeeping position. Administrative positions should be filled on the basis of knowledge, skills and abilities, not on the basis of who gets the most votes in an election. There are no minimum qualifications for the position. Making it appointive allows the city to create qualifications and recruit qualified candidates. An appointed recorder would allow the city to draw from a larger pool of applicants. Currently, the pool is limited to registered voters in Ashland.
“As for transparency, there isn’t a shred of evidence that the 240 Oregon cities with appointed recorders are less transparent than Ashland. What’s more, it’s the Council’s job, not the recorder’s, to ensure transparency,” Kanner asserted.
