The Carbondale Observer

The polls are closed and the returns are in. Joel Fritzler will be our new mayor and Don Monty, Jane Adams, and Lance Jack will join the city council. Fritzler’s old council seat will need to be filled, and mayoral candidate Steven Haynes will leave the council. Sitting mayor Brad Cole and council members Mary Pohlmann and Michael Neill, none of whom ran for reelection, will also leave the council.

First, I voted for all the winners so I’m happy with the results. But the 2011 election season isn’t quite over. Since Fritzler won the mayoral election, his council seat will need to be filled by appointment. I wrote in February that the most democratic option is to appoint the fourth place finisher:

…It seems to me that the natural person to appoint would be the candidate who finishes in fourth place in the April 5 election.

When Lance Jack resigned last year it had been nearly two years since the last election, but that wouldn’t be the case this time. Since council members are usually elected, and since the appointment would happen so near the election, I think the fourth place finisher would have a strong democratic claim on Fritzler’s old council seat.

That claim would be even stronger if the race for third place is very close. In this week’s primary, one vote separated third place (Tom Grant) and fourth place (Lance Jack). If Fritzler is elected mayor and I was the candidate who finished a close fourth in the April 5 election, I would expect to be appointed to Fritzler’s old seat.

Lance Jack, who finished third and won a seat on the council, received 772 votes. Tom Grant, who finished fourth and did not win a seat on the council, received 744 – a difference of only 28 votes. Meanwhile, 84 votes separate Grant and Bradshaw, his nearest opponent. I think the case is strong to appoint Grant to fill Fritzler’s council seat, and I hope our new mayor and council will agree.

Second, I think Fritzler won a convincing victory. I was hoping to avoid a situation where the four candidates more or less equally split the vote. A 25.01% victory wouldn’t have been very convincing. We avoided it this time, but anything is possible in the next election. As others have suggested, at the very least Carbondale should use it’s home rule authority to return to the old system in which only two candidates for each seat continue to the general election.

Third, I don’t think it’s possible to really know who would have won a two person Fritzler vs. Maroney election, but I strongly suspect Fritzler would still have won. I’m betting against the conventional wisdom that Goldman’s voters would have broken for Fritzler. I think Maroney would have gotten  a majority of them. But I also think Fritzler would have gotten an even larger majority of Haynes’ voters and he still would have won.

Fourth, I think this election should mark the end of the Lance Jack liquor license controversy. As most readers will remember, Lance Jack was forced to resign the council last year in order to get a liquor license for his restaurant. I wrote two posts (one, two) criticizing Joel Fritzler’s interpretation of state and local laws, which he cited as his reason for voting against the license. Now, for the third time, voters have returned Lance Jack to the city council – even knowing that he has a liquor license. The new mayor and council should not reopen the Fat Patties liquor license controversy.

Fifth, whether justified or not (and I think it’s not), there is a perception that the business community is uneasy with Fritzler and vice versa. Fritzler’s poor performance in the admittedly unscientific Chamber of Commerce membership poll was bad enough and his reaction (at least as quoted in the papers) didn’t necessarily help. Now that the election is over, business should accept and work with Fritzler, and Fritzler should make it clear that he has no hard feelings.

Continuing Brad Cole’s tradition of delivering a “state of the city” address as a Chamber fundraiser would be a wise move for Fritzler. If Fritzler is concerned about citizen access, and I think he is, he could continue Cole’s tradition of televising the speech on channel 16, or even insist that some free tickets be available. At the same time, business should close ranks and support the duly elected mayor. At the municipal level, cooperation between business and government benefits both.

Sixth, I noticed that this is the second mayoral election in a row in which the second place finisher in the primary went on to win the general election. I don’t think it’s that important, but I wonder why it happens. Does the first place finisher get complacent, or does the second place finisher get motivated? A little of each?

Seventh, I wonder if Maroney’s lack of a website contributed to his defeat. I don’t have strong evidence that this is the case, but I have a hunch and some weak evidence. WordPress (my blogging software) gives me a variety of stats showing how people arrive at my blog. For most of the election, search terms like “george maroney carbondale” or “carbondale mayor maroney” brought more people to my blog than searches for any other candidate. I took that as evidence that Maroney would win.

Now that he has lost, I suspect his lack of a website hurt him. People searched for information on Maroney and, instead of finding a site controlled by him and extolling his virtues, they found this blog. This should be a lesson to future candidates. Times have changed. It will be tough to win a mayoral election in Carbondale without a website.

Eighth, as others point out, turnout was lower this year than in some recent elections. Our neighbor to the east, which has several thousand fewer citizens, had almost a thousand more voters than Carbondale. The total Carbondale mayoral vote in 1999 (pdf) was 4,367; in 2003 (pdf) it was 3,507; in 2007 (pdf) it was 3,903. In 2011, the total mayoral vote was 2,683. That suggests apathy, which is a problem.

Ninth, compliments to SIUC journalism student and local news blogger Barton Lorimor, who’s live election return updates on his B(ee)tl(e)Juice blog kept me up to date. Check his site if you want exact vote totals for mayor, city council, school district 95, and the John A. Logan board.

I’ll probably have more to say on this in a future post, but these are some preliminary thoughts.

Comments are welcome.

I must have missed the Southern Illinoisan’s Saturday article announcing the results of the Carbondale Chamber of Commerce mayoral survey. It turns out the Chamber members favor Maroney, sort of:

The Chamber sent out 325 emails asking who members who they would vote for in the mayoral elections and had 60 responses. Maroney received 47.5 percent with 28.8 percent favoring Sam Goldman, 16.9 percent for Joel Fritzler and 6.8 percent for Steven Haynes.

The survey asked, “Based on what you know about the candidates, their platforms and their experience, who do you plan to vote for to be the next mayor of the City of Carbondale?”

As you might imagine, Maroney thought the result accurately represented the views of the business community. Goldman, Fritzler, and Haynes pointed to the small number of respondents as a reason to doubt the validity of the result.

Sixty responses out of 325 surveys is about 18.5%, which seems pretty good to me. I’m betting Maroney is right – the survey probably reflects the views of the Chamber of Commerce members. But I also agree with Goldman, Fritzler, and Haynes (and the Carbondaze Gazette) that it probably doesn’t matter much.

I was a little surprised that Goldman finished second, and Fritzler third.  Maroney took first place in the February primary, but Fritzler was a close second with just eleven fewer votes. Put another way, Maroney led Fritzler by just 0.59% of the vote. Meanwhile, Goldman ran a distant third, finishing 133 votes behind Fritzler – a little more than a 7% gap. In the chamber survey, Goldman and Fritzler changed places.

If the survey represents the views of the Chamber members, it’s interesting that Fritzler ranks third. After six years on city council, I would have expected him to have built a better relationship with the business community. On the other hand, Fritzler has basically been the anti-Cole since at least 2007, and business loves Brad Cole. But I’m really not convinced it means much for the outcome of the election.

As I’ve mentioned, I voted for Goldman in the primary. I still prefer Goldman, but I haven’t been planning to vote for him in the April 5 election. My perception, and others agree, is that the mayoral election is a two person race between George Maroney and Joel Fritzler.

That’s as it should be. After all, Goldman wouldn’t have made it past the primary under the election rules used for the 2007 election. Worse, he failed to win a single precinct in February’s primary. But some people will vote for Goldman, and I’m wondering whether that’s worse for Maroney or Fritzler.

The conventional wisdom is that Goldman would take more votes from Fritzler than from Maroney. The chamber survey suggests that might not be true.

Comments are welcome.

As everyone knows, Brent Ritzel was eliminated from Carbondale’s mayoral race after finishing last in Tuesday’s primary. George Maroney finished first, Joel Fritzler second, Sam Goldman third, Steven Haynes fourth, and Ritzel fifth. The Southern Illinoisan has the exact vote totals on their website.

I had a hard time deciding which mayoral candidate to vote for. Every candidate had at least one idea I agreed with, and each had at least one factor that I considered a drawback. I didn’t feel especially excited about any of them. I eventually decided to vote for Read the rest of this entry »

The Southern Illinoisan had an article Tuesday on George Maroney’s official announcement for mayor. From the article:

The first-time political candidate said he would work to improve the city’s business climate, lead the discussion on consolidating elementary school districts to save money and attract young families, and more closely follow Carbondale’s city manager form of government.

I’m guessing the talk about consolidating school districts refers to District 95 (elementary) and District 165 (high school). Or maybe he’s talking about consolidating the various elementary school buildings into one. I assume he’s not talking about consolidating with the Unity Point and Giant City districts.  Consolidating 95 and 165 would be a great idea, but I wouldn’t want to see the elementary school buildings consolidated.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like the talk of a restoration of the council-manager form of government.  An active mayor is an important source of political leadership. The functions of a mayor and city manager are different, and both are important.

But I’m not sure Maroney intends to be a weak mayor:

Maroney said he believes Carbondale’s city government has strayed from its original design and he would act as a CEO, delegating authority to its proper recipients.

Castle Perilous owner and blogger Scott Thorne had a post on the Carbondaze Gazette commenting about this:

Delegating authority to proper recipients is much easier when you are the ultimate authority, as Maroney was during his tenure at Memorial Hospital. The mayor, first, has to respond to a number of different publics and, second, has to convince the rest of the city council to agree with any initiatives he wishes to implement.

Exactly.  I would add that under the council manager system, the mayor is not the CEO. Title 1, Chapter 2, Article A of the city code (navigation on the left) addresses this. The mayor is head of the city for legal purposes in relationship to the Governor and presides over city council meetings.  Title 1, Chapter 3, Article A assigns most executive functions to the city manager.

As Brad Cole has shown, there is room in the council-manager form of government for an active mayor providing political leadership. If people don’t like the direction in which Cole led the city, they should elect someone who will lead in a different direction. We shouldn’t just decide that leadership itself is the problem. I hope voters will make this an issue in the 2011 election.

I’m wondering if a clear Cole successor candidate will emerge.  I also wonder if Cole will endorse anyone.

Comments are welcome.

Elections for Carbondale mayor and city council are coming up in April 2011 and several candidates have already announced they’re running.  Joel Fritzler, George Maroney, Sam Goldman, and Brent Ritzel have all announced their candidacies for mayor.  As far as I know, there have been no formal announcements for city council, but a few people are rumored to be running.

Frizler should be considered a real contender.  He has been on city council since 2005 and was the top vote getter in the 2009 elections.  In recent years, he has been sharply critical of current mayor Brad Cole, who is not running for reelection.

George Maroney’s chances are tough to gauge.  He was CEO of Southern Illinois Healthcare, which is one of the region’s largest employers.  SIH grew during his tenure so it seems reasonable to assume he’s capable of executive leadership.  Judging by some of his letters to the editor, he is pretty conservative, so he may inherit some of Cole’s voters.  On the other hand, he’s never run for office so there is no way to judge his potential political base or campaign skills.

Sam Goldman has served on the SIU Board of Trustees and as Chancellor.  During Goldman’s tenure as chancellor, enrollment continued to decline at SIU.  Goldman is popular in the community and could be competitive.  He is retired, so he would have plenty of time to devote to serving as mayor.

Ritzel seems to be the outlier in this group.  He is head of the effort to rehabilitate the Buckminster Fuller Dome Home on Cherry St., and is business manager for the Holistic Wellness Institute.  About a year ago he was promoting a clean energy manufacturing project in Herrin.  I don’t know quite how to judge Ritzel’s prospects, so I’m going to save that for a future post.

Some other names have been mentioned including former Building and Services Manager Tom Grant, Councilman Steven Haynes, and former Community Relations Officer Marilyn James.  We’ll see if any of them officially announce candidacies.

***CORRECTED: I received an email alerting me that I had misspelled Brent Ritzel’s name in an earlier version of this article.  The spelling has been corrected.  I apologize for the error.***