Before Lebanon City moves further into the 21st Century, we need to focus on the fundamentals of our city by developing a more effective form of government. I propose we reevaluate the structure of Lebanon City’s government to determine if the current system we have is the most effective for representing and meeting the needs of all of our City’s residents and taking Lebanon City into the 21st Century.
In my last article, I explained that Lebanon City is a “Home Rule Charter” City, which means we can adjust or change how our government is structured without the State’s approval. Currently, we have a “Strong Mayor” form of government, (for more information on what that means, click here) which was put into place in 1994. That means we have not changed our system of government in 28 years, yet the demographics of our city have changed dramatically over that time.
According to the US Census Bureau, Lebanon is the second-fastest-growing city in the State of Pennsylvania, and out of the nearly 20,000 cities in the United States, Lebanon ranks within the top 1,500 for population size. Because Lebanon is ethnically, socially, culturally, and economically diverse, our representation should mirror some of that diversity. At the very least, our elected officials should come geographically from different parts of the city. However, today the majority of our City leaders come from the same side of town, and as a result, they represent only one subsection of our city’s residents. For a city such as ours, the only way we can build back our community is to work in coordination with each other. We need greater socioeconomic representation from the people who live here because ultimately Lebanon is not the same city it was 30 years ago.
First, while Lebanon’s population is not on par with cities such as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, or Lancaster, our population is large enough to where relying on a single executive to ultimately manage everything is unrealistic. Cities across Pennsylvania are struggling to advance today because traditionally, we have chosen to follow a very narrow model of developed leadership. Instead of having one executive (the mayor) bear the weight of an entire city, I believe we need our local city council to take a more involved role in the City’s leadership. This means revising Lebanon City’s “mayor-strong” system of governance to divide the responsibilities of leadership more evenly with the city council.
Second, the population of Lebanon City is currently divided into 15 wards, which are distinct subsections of the city, and we elect city council members on an “at large” basis. We should revise the way our current ward system works so that instead of having 15 wards, all voting for the same 5 council members, we should have 5 wards that each elect their own representative for City Council.
Next, our current city council primarily acts as an advisory board to our mayor, and most legislation is proposed by and originates within the mayor’s office. This is incredibly problematic as currently, many of our city codes and ordinances are out of date and require considerable revision. Unfortunately, our legislators (members of the City Council) do not have a background in drafting legislation nor do they have the time it takes to work on it. Instead of requiring our Mayor to be our Chief Executive and primary legislation drafter, we should have a City Council that is dedicated to drafting legislation and focused on connecting with the people of our city and bringing the needs of our populace, as represented by them, back to our local government. This would allow our leaders to act and make decisions and revisions based on direct feedback from business owners, investors, and residents of the city more efficiently.
For this to be a possibility, we need to revise the role of City Council members from “advisory” to a “part-time job” status, where our city council members receive part-time compensation as opposed to the minimal annual stipend they receive now. We need a fully functional legislative chamber, and we need legislatures who understand and can write legislation.
Ultimately, I propose that we reevaluate the structure of Lebanon City’s government to determine if the current system we have is the most effective for representing and meeting the needs of all of our City’s residents and taking Lebanon City into the 21st Century. In doing so, we should consider reducing Lebanon’s ward system from 15 wards to 5 wards that are equally distributed according to population. We should then change the way we elect council members to a ward-specific based representation. We should revise the current role of city council members from what it is now to a traditional part-time position. This would allow us as a city to have dedicated local legislators that are representative of the city as a whole, who would be equipped with the proper amount of time and the power they need to be able to effectively perform their jobs in service to our City in coordination with our mayor.
I welcome your questions and comments. Join me for my next installment of Political Analysis where I will discuss these ideas more.
Author: Alisher Aminov
