Council Approves Bigger Government

By Dave Freneaux

On Tuesday night, in a record four hour meeting of Central’s City Council, Council Members LoBue, Washington and Messina, voted “no” on an amendment which would have divided Central into five Districts, a concept they each campaigned on last year.  Council Member DeJohn, who offered the compromise, and Council Member Moak, both voted in favor of the five District amendment .

In another attempt to reach a compromise Council Members DeJohn and Moak supported an amendment to create five Divisions, in which each area of the city is represented by one Council Member, all of whom are elected At-Large.  Council Members LoBue, Messina and Washington voted down this amendment as well.

In a final attempt to resolve the issue and unify the Council, Council Member Moak offered an amendment which would allow the citizens of Central to go to the polls and decide for themselves whether to increase the size of Central’s City Council and what type of representation the people want.  Council Member DeJohn supported the amendment, but Council Members Messina, LoBue and Washington voted against allowing the people to decide.  Mr. Washington explained that “This is not a big decision” and he felt the Council could decide this matter for the people.  Mr. Moak felt quite differently, stating “You are fundamentally changing the form of government for the City of Central.”

    In each of the first three Districts committee meetings Council Member Messina explained why he felt it was important to increase the size of the Council by adding two seats elected At-Large. Messina explained, “…right now all five Council Members live in School Board District #1.   Here is the only thing that bothers me about the districts, I think that it would be harmful and a loss to the City of Central, brainpower wise, effort wise, if of the five Councilmen that are in District 1 when we go to 2014 when the next election is, that automatically four of them could not, would not be elected”… "I am going to be in favor of the five districts and the two at large.  That way it would give those folks an opportunity to run at large.”

    The ordinance changing the City Council structure to Five Districts plus two At-Large was approved by a 3-2 vote.  In favor were LoBue, Washington and Messina, opposed were Moak and DeJohn.  The ordinance is now on the Mayor’s desk awaiting his signature or veto.

    Public comment on the ordinance was overwhelmingly against increasing the size of Central’s City Council.  Thirty two persons spoke and only eight were in favor of the ordinance.  So that the entire community can be fully informed about this extremely important meeting, the entire four hours of video can be seen on CentralSpeaks.com by clicking on the CentralSpeaksTV icon at the top of any screen.  Due to the length of the meeting, it is presented in three parts.