City Charter Commission Hearing – April 11th – Chris’ Transcript
Thank you, good evening. My name is Chris Baecker. I am the editor and policy director of a little outfit called InfuseSA. We exist to advance personal and economic freedom for all citizens of Bexar County.
At the turn of the century, I was working, welcoming the first two of my four daughters and just entering grad school at UTSA when I remember former Mayor Ed Garza wanting to raise council pay. I think he wanted to “professionalize” city council, if I remember his words correctly.
Being on council is not as much of a profession as what we do out in the private sector, which is produce more worth for society. I would not increase the pay, and I certainly wouldn’t make it a full-time job, because they’re more valuable out there with the rest of us.
Being on council, I would imagine, is a purpose-drive job. My trade is as an accountant during the day, but I also teach economics over at Northwest Vista College, I do this with InfuseSA, and I am the Head Roadie for the Earl Warren High School Band/Color guard; the Purple Pride of the Northside.
I only get paid for one of those positions. I do those three because I want to, because I believe in them, much like what I would imagine is what council is.
What we should be doing is looking to move more of the council sessions and committees to the evenings, maybe even some Saturdays, to make it easier for the council to work along with the rest of us out in the real world.
If you want to tie their salaries to the area median income, OK, or maybe even a fraction of it because, ironically enough, the less they are down here government-ing, the more likely the area median wage is to rise.
As far as terms go, John Mellencamp, years ago, advocated for stripping presidential term limits. It was interesting that he cited FDR, among all examples. Ironically, it was FDR and Hoover policies that caused the Great Depression, and made it worse.
It was an ironic example to use. We don’t want to do that here. I’ve seen ideas for stretching terms, but no commensurate ideas for limiting those terms. We don’t need them being comfortable in government jobs. They need to be where they’re most valuable; out in the private sector.
Whatever job they’re doing: owning a shop, a lawyer, an office worker, medicine, whatever.
As far as the city manager goes, it’s kind of a helpless job, because government is not set up to be effective. It has no competitors, it will never go out of business, and we know how it relies on financing; by reaching into our pockets against our will.
Therefore, it lacks the basic incentives to be effective.
A couple weeks ago, a representative of one of the chambers of commerce said “CEOs of municipal corporations … size and complexity of city operations should be a fundamental consideration in creating a transparent, market-responsive, competitive approach to compensation and performance evaluation.”
“Municipal corporations … market-responsive … competitive approach.” To quote an old favorite song of mine, those are two or three “words combined that cannot make sense.”
If we’re going to consider anything, we ought to consider Section 34 – “Power of the Initiative.”
The reason we’re talking about the city manager thing right now, if I remember correctly, also going on back in 2018 was the paid sick leave ordinance.
It should not be so easy for people to, to use a generous word, convince 10% of the voters to reach into the pockets of others, especially when voter turnout is barely that in a municipal election. We ought be considering raising that threshold.
Finally, as far as the city manager goes, I’ve been trying to learn about the city manager compensation and term. I’ve been talking to a gentleman who has been studying city organization, and business and economic development for a very long time. I’ve been wondering why he hasn’t come up here and spoken.
Then it hit me this morning when I was running: he’s not actually a resident of San Antonio. He lives in Alamo Heights.
One of our colleagues at Infuse, a particularly resourceful one, recently discovered that a couple members of the commission have taken homestead exemptions on homes outside of city limits. The commission is supposed to be comprised of San Antonio residents.
Thank you.