The City of Lincoln is revisiting an old topic.
Five years ago, members of the City’s Charter Revision Committee put forward an idea to ban business owners, who may want to contract with the City for goods or services, from running for elected office. The Lincoln Chamber opposed this idea then but our efforts today may not yield the same positive results.
As the voice of business in Lincoln, the Chamber strongly believes in a system of government where private sector business can compete to provide the best services at the lowest cost to the taxpayer. This is the current policy in Lincoln. The City’s competitive bid process and open records of contracts allows a bright light to be shown on all dealing a business may have with the City. It’s competitive with sealed bids reviewed by the City’s Purchasing Department. Simply, the lowest responsible bidder is awarded the contract.
There is no “gaming” of the system. However, that is just one of several arguments that proponents of the Charter Amendment use to try and justify its passing. It’s the Chamber’s position that if there is truly some concern about how our competitive bid process works, then let’s address that concern instead of passing an unnecessary amendment to our City Charter.
Another argument for enacting this ban, as cited in a press release by the Mayor’s office, is that under the current system, other elected officials are put into a tough position when it comes to enforcing the penalties for not fulfilling a contract. Yet again, this argument for the ban doesn’t quite hold-up under scrutiny. If an elected official (or a City Director) can’t fulfill their duty to enforce a written contract, then the problem isn’t the fact that it’s another elected official who holds the contract, it is the fact that whoever holds the enforcement duties are unable to solve the situation.
The bottom line is this: the proposed Charter Amendment implies implicitly that men and women engaged in business can’t be trusted to fulfill their contracts with the city and at the same time be elected by the people to provide leadership on dozens of other issues. The Lincoln Chamber cannot support such assertions. Many times, in a city of Lincoln’s size, there are only a handful of businesses that can provide a specific service to their fellow citizens. It would be unfair to those business owners to say “Sorry, but we simply do not need your input as a potential member of the City Council or Mayor’s office.” Conversely, we should not punish the citizens of Lincoln and make them pay more for goods and services because the area’s only provider may someday want to go into public service as an elected official.
Unfortunately, I believe this issue will be put on the ballot by the Lincoln City Council. That’s where members of the business community, can play a role in where we go from here. I encourage you to oppose this measure, whether that is through a phone call to your City Council representative or with a no vote in May. Let’s do our part and ensure good business for the City of Lincoln.
The Chamber’s mission is to improve the lives of Lincoln residents by providing increased economic opportunity and can only be accomplished together. Networking opportunities, business advocacy, and creating economic viability are critical to our success. We encourage you to become a member and help us achieve these goals for Lincoln. For more information, please contact Paul 436-2350.