Spirit Or Letter?
When the Council instituted term limits several years ago for our board appointments there were concerns expressed by some citizens that we would end up with a dearth of qualified candidates. Other arguments were made on behalf of experience and continuity making the case that it could take six years before anyone could be up to speed on how things “should” go. Thankfully, the Council at that time saw those arguments for what they were and proceeded to institute the policy. Since then we have had very little trouble filling the boards. We have also jumped through hoops on several occasions to circumvent the spirit of the policy while not breaking the letter of the policy. The policy was put into place to specifically limit the amount of time an individual can serve on any given board. What occurred last week is yet another example of going against the spirit of our policy while adhering to the letter. Three of the five Council members (a majority) voted to reappoint a person to the Temple Economic Development Corporation “TEDC” for a third term. Technically it was only his second term, because one of his terms was a result to an earlier acrobatic maneuver by the Council to allow various boards to “own” seats on other boards thus creating automatic appointments. In this instance, this individual served one term on the TEDC board, because he was the Chairman of the Reinvestment Zone Board.
My question is this. What’s more important: the spirit or the letter of the policy? The Council has gotten pretty good about focusing more on the letter and less on the spirit.
Click here to view a video clip of the 7-minute discussion from last Thursday’s Council meeting.
Tags: Board Appointments, charter, City boards, TEDC