Some history and civics. Generally, accountability is what you make of it. You can hold appointees as accountable as elected officials - if you wish to - but to do so, you must be involved. I don't generally believe that law enforcement officials should be elected if only because law enforcement is actually an executive function of government not as separate from administration as legislating and adjudicating.
The question of elected and appointed officials has always been part of the civic dialogue and offices and come and gone as the people determined their need and their status as elected or appointed has also shifted with the times. If anything, we have converted once-elected offices to appointed ones. Counties are the only constitutionally required subdivisions of state government. All others - cities, town and townships - are creatures of local initiative. In the earliest days - ALL county officials were elected: boards of commissioners, sheriff, (tax) assessor, comptroller (financial manager), property records (plat recording, title recording, property ownership history guardians), county attorneys, judges and justices of the peace. I don't know about public works and engineering, frankly. All of them started as part-time jobs held by farmers, general store owners, barbers, etc. Only much later did they become essentially full time jobs (although technically commissioners remain part time positions with full time responsibilities. In all cases, powerful - and not very accountable - fiefdoms were created and many remain so in most jurisdictions, but almost invisible, unless serious controversy crops up. Sheriffs and county attorneys, in particular, are the least accountable (on a daily basis) for the important work they do. But they don't do policy and they don't really answer for their administration, even their budgets, to the public or their county board. The migration from elected to appointed offices for many of those positions has been going on for years, starting with assessors, then comptrollers, then property recorders' offices (whose registration fees made them a luxury living). With rare exceptions, county (now district) judges are usually appointed first by the governor, then elected almost always unopposed and in almost complete obscurity, again unless a controversial incumbent is under fire and being challenged or a retiring judge steps down in time for an election to take place and candidates come out of the woodwork. That pretty much leaves Sheriffs and county attorneys as the only remaining offices for which real campaigns are conducted, and, even then, rarely are incumbents unseated unless they've raped a baby or some such. Less radical scandals are rarely enough to cause the the dumping of incumbents in those offices, primarily because they are "down ballot," falling below federal offices (President, Congress - Senate, House of Reps.), statewide offices (Governor, Secy. of State, Auditor, Attorney General, Supreme Court) and state legislative offices (state Senate and House). In most cases, the number of people bothering to vote for those offices drops so significantly, incumbents are all but a shoe-in. This is not accountability. To try and beat Fletcher for his 5th Ward folly three years before his re-election bid is a very large joke, but one can argue he's politicized law enforcement to a significant degree. The difference between police chiefs and sheriffs are also in their histories - chiefs (police and fire) have always been appointed (if still more unaccountable than their peer department heads (finance, parks, public works etc.). They're also left off the hook in some places like St. Paul by holding time-certain 6-year appointments to stagger their tenures with that of the appointing authority - the Mayor. Only when we had the commission form of government were department heads elected officials because they were both councilmembers and department heads, the former as elected officials, the latter as mayoral appointees. Birrenbach is correct. Ramsey County's unique status as a Home Rule Charter County in Minnesota tears us away from state statutes generally. This means that a charter amendment could convert both the county attorney and the sheriff to appointed positions. Such a change would have to go to the voters and is not possible without going to a ballot. The charter commissioners cannot create or remove anything from the charter itself, only vote to place an amendment before country residents for. I support making both offices appointed. Politicizing any aspect of the justice system by allowing those critical offices to skirt the rest of county government's more accountable body - the board of commissioners - too often results in pandering to voters' emotions and not to the professionalism and ethics of law enforcement when the time comes for re-election. Otherwise they have become true little empires in their own right and their power is in their independence and not in their requirement to conform to policymakers on the board. The board does have considerable power, but not in matters of law enforcement and that is not good. County government in urban centers has come too far not to see the wisdom of consolidating all county offices under the policy and budget controls of the county boards (but still administered by the county executive, also appointed). So much power is inherent in those two offices as it is, something that would not generally change if appointed. But, if appointed, they would be elevated to true professional status and not politically separate and vulnerable to those forces. Andy Driscoll Crocus Hill/Ward 2 ------ From: Tim Erickson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Thompson: > The county sheriff is going to be MORE accountable if appointed > by the board? I think that kind of idea is usually called nonsense. Elections and appointments are both means of holding a public official accountable, however they have different strengths and weaknesses. Obviously, we don't want to elect every city or county officer. So, the question then becomes - how do we best select and hold our Sheriff accountable? Some people claim that the Sheriff is much like the St. Paul Chief of Police. Why do we elect the Sheriff, but appoint the chief of Police? Why is one system better for one job, but the other better for the other? Or, is one system better than the other - and we just got it wrong in either the case of the Sheriff or the Chief of Police. I'd like to ask Chris (or anyone else - that favors an elected Sheriff) why they think that elections are specifically important for the Sheriff? If its useful, please compare the Sheriff and SPPD Chief of Police. Personally, I can't imagine electing the chief of Police - and don't fully appreciate the justification for electing a Sheriff. Its personally very difficult for me to hold the Sheriff accountable through the ballot box, because I know almost nothing about what he actually does or whether or not he is doing a good job at it. Anyone.....? NOTE: I suppose that this argument is similar to the one about electing Judges. Is the public really able and informed enough to hold these officials accountable or select the best person for the job? Is it really appropriate to inject election politics into these important policy positions? Thanks, Tim Erickson _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
