Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptainYooh
I am not trying to design a new election system on the fly here. Just saying that the ward system, in my opinion, is flawed more than a no-ward system. It is funny how people are scared of the inconvenience of having to look at 40-50 resumes once every four years. What's a big deal if you care about who governs your city? Making the playing field even - also not impossible. Lawn signs - outlaw and get rid of them entirely; they are annoying and don't add any useful information. Political platform format can be standardized for all candidates, so that they can be evaluated online and compared apples to apples. Make candidates state their election promises in writing. Make them provide the budget breakdown as they want to see it on both cost and revenue sides. Require at least some level of post-secondary education and work experience to be eligible for a nomination etc. I mean, these are all reasonable suggestions.
Council's primary role is to hire a good city manager and approve the budget that benefits the entire city. Secondary role is to review ongoing city policies that, again, should benefit the entire city. Ward system stifles its ability to be effective in both of these roles.
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Most voters are not nearly engaged enough to deal with this system. If you switch, you're guaranteed to get party slates and people voting the party line. Which is exactly what we don't need, imo.
I like wards, and think its reasonable that there's a specific elected representative that I can contact with local concerns.
I also think changing would mean most of the representatives would be from wealthier/more educated parts of town. Certain areas of the city already get lower quality infrastructure (ctrain at grade on 36th st) this would exacerbate that problem.
It would also make it easier for fringe/one issue candidates to muster enough support to have a few representative be single issue councillors.