Committee system needs reform, but not this way
US&J; editorial
Saturday, October 09, 2026

Alderman Scott Cercone is on the right track in pushing the subject of committee reform in city government.

Having said that, we’re glad his proposal to limit the terms of police and fire commission service didn’t get majority backing Wednesday.

It’s not because Cercone is wrong about the virtues of term limits, it’s simply because the proposal he put on the table was, as Alderman David Blackley said, too narrow in focus.

The city is, depending on one’s perspective, either blessed or loaded down with 25 citizen-led committees advising the city on all manner of matters, from zoning and planning to parks and recreation.

While some of those committees meet infrequently and do little more than offer an opinion on how the city should direct resources and priorities, others, like the police and fire boards, and the zoning and planning boards, have immense power.

Singling out the police and fire boards among them all seems curious.

Moreover, Cercone’s assertion that the fire and police chiefs alone should tend to hiring and discipline of their rank-and-file, without alleged interference from nosy citizens, or that the city should hire a human resources officer in place of having the boards, is an eyebrow-raiser.

The last thing Cercone should want to suggest is that citizen involvement in the governance of their city is neither needed or wanted.

We recognize the dangers inherent in having the same handfuls of people serve these boards endlessly. One can, over time, build a base of considerable influence from a volunteer post without ever having to do the work of running for a political office.

However, we’ll also side with those who say experience — and time to learn the ins and outs of the departments being overseen — matters. Rotating good people out of service after two, two-year terms invites a situation in which the boards can do little except trust the advice of the bureaucrats they’re supposed to be guiding.

There ought to be a happier medium between those two extremes.

If he believes the citizen committee system is too large and cumbersome to be of effective service to the Council, Cercone should return to the drawing board and come up with a way to consider reform of the totality, not just the parts that for reasons we can’t discern seem to irritate him.

And we do encourage him to do so.
View Printable Story

Add a comment