Half Of Readers: Ferguson’s Mayor Should Not Resign
Only one person selected “maybe” in the Sunday Poll — that person was me. I think Knowles‘ time to resign was 5-6 months ago — to fall on his sword — to clear out the old guard leadership so real change can begin. Now I hope the recall effort is successful.
Here are the poll results:
Q: Should Ferguson Mayor James Knowles resign?
- No 21 [50%]
- Yes 14 [33.33%]
- Unsure/No Opinion 6 [14.29%]
- Maybe 1 [2.38%]
Last Fall Knowles didn’t think problems existed in the Ferguson Police Department — his employer for 4 years, but the DOJ has shown otherwise. For Ferguson’s new political activists I think it’ll be much more rewarding if he’s recalled by voters than if he were to resign as others have. Conversely, if he survives the recall it’ll be a blow to those trying to bring change.
Ferguson has a Council-Manager form of government, the mayor’s annual salary is only $4,200.
— Steve Patterson
You are spot on with your analysis – “I think it’ll be much more rewarding if he’s recalled by voters than if he were to resign as others have [advocated]. Conversely, if he survives the recall it’ll be a blow to those trying to bring change.” However, given past voting patterns, where poor, minority, turnout has been insignificant, any recall effort would likely be unsuccessful.
Bigger picture, where do we stop going after the “bad, old” leadership, individually? How does replacing someone who is essentially donating their time (the “mayor” is being “paid” less than $81 a week!) change the underlying culture? And if we continually demand the recall of our elected officials, how do we encourage “good, dedicated, right-thinking, quality” people to become involved in public service?
The real “problem” is not individual(s), it’s structural. We have far too many small cities in north county, with small police departments, little commercial tax base, declining residential property values and no way, other than predatory policing, to fund their “city”. Ferguson is not unique – look at the bigger list – Pine Lawn, St. Ann and Normandy are all far worse “offenders” than Ferguson.
North County’s current environment has evolved, reactively, it wasn’t created, consciously, to be oppressively racist. And north County and south County have evolved quite differently, with south county having far fewer small “cities”, a lot more unicorporated areas, more unified (County) policing and better schools, even though their underlying, mid-century architecture and urban design are quite similar.
Given that evidence, the most likely “solution” to Ferguson’s “problems” won’t be replacing the “old guard, the best solution would be disincorporation . . .
http://nextstl.com/2014/11/wealth-residents-flee-st-louis-county-munis-turn-fines-fees/
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/change-systems-or-people-beyond-ferguson-debates-way-forward
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/09/03/how-st-louis-county-missouri-profits-from-poverty/
Election timing makes a difference as does the lack of political parties: “The first chart shows turnout rates among African Americans and whites in Ferguson for both the 2012 general election in November and the 2013 municipal election in April. In 2012, African Americans and whites turned out in nearly identical numbers (54 percent and 55 percent, respectively). In the April 2013 municipal election, turnout was dramatically lower among both groups, but whites were three times more likely to vote than African Americans.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2014/08/15/how-ferguson-exposes-the-racial-bias-in-local-elections/