Catching up on my emails, I came across this story of Yale students pulling a good one on Harvard. The video is available at HarvardSucks.org.

The city of Dallas is currently working to certify what is known as the Blackwood petition, which is a city charter amendment proposal that would give the mayor a whole lot more power than the mayor has in the current structure refered to as the 14/1 system of 14 council members plus the mayor. I went to the debate last night between the current mayor Laura Miller who favors the petition and the deputy mayor pro tem, district 5 councilman Donald W. Hill. The debate was moderated by district 13 councilman Mitchell Rasansky. I came into this debate with no predisposition regarding either form of government other than the Republican principle of limited government, which Henry David Thoreau said it best: "that government is best which governs least." I am aware that this quote is also attributed to Thomas Paine. If you know which is more accurate, let me know.

Deputy mayor pro-tem Don Hill did a pretty good job chewing up the Blackwood city charter amendment proposal, particularly on two concerns:

1. Money will play a very big part in the mayoral race, $800,000 for the last Dallas mayoral election vs. 3 million for Houston, with all of the city boards and commissions be appointed by the mayor other than the planning and zoning commission. Mayor Miller said she would let the council members continue to make appointments to the city boards and commissions if the amendment passes in May, which effectively gave ammo to the other side that Blackwood is a bad proposal.
2. The mayor will have authority to hire and fire all 13,000 people employed by the city, including other council members' assistants and secretaries, which is a rather sore point if any council member would need help to have legislative preparation that goes against the mayor's position.

Not to be outdone, on the part of the mayor, Laura Miller pointed out all the ineffectiveness of the current system and its slow response to citizen's concerns, particularly the code enforcement department but that's old news as we have heard so many times. However, I agree that entrenched beaucrats need to be dislodged. People need to work and be performance-measured instead of just getting paid and raises all the time. I would love for each of those departments to be sub-contracted out to private sector companies. Throughout the debate, Laura just fumbled and left a lot of gaping holes for the deputy mayor pro tem to attack. Particularly, she continued to agree with Don Hill one after another that various sections of the proposal are bad by saying that it it passes, she wouldn't do that. What about future mayors? Don Hill did a rather good job returning fire when Laura Miller said there are people on the city's payroll apparently just planning on when their pension is going to vest rather than the city's future, obviously refering to the former city manager and the likes, but the deputy mayor pro tem turned it on her with the fire fighters and police officers.

If I were a citizen of the city of Dallas, I would vote against the Blackwood proposal in its current form. But mayor Miller has gotten a point. I would entertain another city charter amendment to make the city government, especially the office of city manager, more efficient and responsive to citizens' needs and concerns. It should not take 11 of the 15 on the council to fire the city manager.