Let’s make it clear who’s elected by the people and who answers
to those elected by the people
The Gilroy City Council has long allowed the city administrator and the city attorney seats at the council table, elevated above our hardworking city clerk and far, far above the hoi polloi of Gilroy residents.
Many other cities, counties and school boards do likewise. That doesn’t make it right.
It is necessary that the city administrator and counsel attend every council meeting. Our city counsel, consultant Linda Callon, needs to be there in case a question arises that requires her legal expertise. That is why the city retains her firm’s services: to give us legal advice.
And it is necessary that City Administrator Jay Baksa attend every meeting, in case council members have questions and also to report on the doings of the city government. That is why the city pays his salary.
And since they both have to be there, every meeting, for the entire meeting, they may as well have the same comfortable $1,000 chairs as council members.
But both Callon and Baksa have allowed their elevated physical altitude to influence their behavior. Neither is in charge.
The people of Gilroy collectively are the boss of the city, and they elect city council and the mayor to represent us. Baksa is an employee. Callon is a consultant.
It is not the place of Callon to repeatedly cut off talk between council members, as she did most recently during a discussion of the relationship between council and Bonfante Gardens.
Nor is it the place of Baksa to repeatedly ask council members who are voting no on a budget whether they understand what they are voting on and whether they really mean to vote no. There is a line between elected officials, empowered by the people, and paid administrators or consultants that should be clear.
Just because, for example, a council member has decided not to merely rubberstamp the city budget does not mean they should be a stool pigeon and the target for repeated attempts at subtle intimidation.
Tor the purposes of clarity and organization, the administrator and counsel should move off the dais.
Perhaps they could sit at the side of the dais, on a level with City Clerk Rhonda Pellin. That would facilitate the type of communication that should be protocol. Working together as a team does not require equality in this public setting, but rather a clear understanding of who is elected and who is suppose to advise those elected.
We the people of Gilroy elect the city council to run the city. They, in turn, retain the services of an administrator and a legal adviser. Everyone needs a clear understanding of their role, and in Gilroy that line is very fuzzy.
