Audio Transcript
Raziah Roushan 0:00
Raziah Roushan
SJ Oxendine 0:01
Please give a synopsis of your presentation this evening.
Raziah Roushan 0:06
Yeah. So as a Beaverton resident and a property owner here, we're talking about the charter change. We currently have a strong-mayor system. I'm in favor of a charter change. I think that what this does is it puts in a city manager that can ultimately oversee staff. Right. So when we're talking about the city of Beaverton, and its expansive growth in population as well as development, we're talking about a city manager who can oversee that and focus on the staff level to know that the staff are taking care of all of our 200,000 citizens, I think is what we're getting close to. I think that one of the- one of the concerns that came up was making sure that the citizens have enough information before this goes on a ballot. And we do have a number of out streams that we can utilize that in the discussions earlier,they've utilized a number of these streams. So we've had some wonderful feedback from the community as- as- so far.
SJ Oxendine 1:00
Well, how come people are- one of the biggest complaints that I keep hearing is there's not enough outreach. And there's not enough people that know what's going on. How do you answer that problem?
Raziah Roushan 1:12
I think that Laura Mitchell had a great answer to that. And one is that it is hard to ask people to take a break from their busy lives to ask, in particular, tonight's meeting starts at 6:30 and a lot of people are still getting off work. However, they have done some open sessions, and I know that some of our councilors have been out in the community talking about it. And we had one speaker who is a vice chair on one of the local NACs, and the NACs, are one of the ways that I find about information, all the different pocket areas of Beaverton, is utilizing the neighborhood association commissions because they know everybody within their districts as well. So my- my feeling about it is that there have been a lot of really great voices in the room and no matter how many people you tell, something exists, there will always be 3000 other people who didn't know it existed.
SJ Oxendine 2:00
Okay, so be a little specific for people. What is the big deal difference between having a council and a mayor and a council and a manager?
Raziah Roushan 2:15
So the council itself is still an elected body and they will still oversee budgetary, you know, approvals and things of that nature, obviously other kind of inner workings where money is being exchanged or major transitions to infrastructure. What we're talking about is a strong mayor situation where the mayor as a seat oversees all the understaff working and can also have not ultimate power but at least has a larger sway when it comes to changing policy. When we look at str- like a city manager, run city, we're talking about a staff person who then oversees staff people. So the mayor is still an elected official just doesn't have as much time spent working in the staff under workings. So it's still a very powerful position. One of the comments that was said earlier was taking power away from the mayor. No, it's-
SJ Oxendine 3:07
Yeah, they they complain that you're making it more of a ceremonial position.
Raziah Roushan 3:12
The kissing babies thing.
SJ Oxendine 3:14
Yeah, yeah.
Raziah Roushan 3:16
Um, but that doesn't mean that- it's not all or nothing. Really, it's you're- what you're doing is you're changing the power dynamic. But there's still a lot of strength in the mayor's position itself and the way that the mayor works with the council and the way the mayor is still going to be out in the community, the way that a strong mayor is out in the community, being present, listening, making sure that other connections are made as well. So that's still the role of the mayor no matter what.
SJ Oxendine 3:42
And you sir, are.
John Duggar 3:44
I am John Duggar. Okay. A resident of Beaverton, and a candidate for City Council
SJ Oxendine 3:50
It's not so much the subject that you have a problem with. It's the process about- the way that it's being done and there's not enough people being notified and included as to the changes that are about to take place.
John Duggar 4:07
Exactly, 100% there's nothing burning that requires this change to happen right now. Certainly not in May, particularly when 11 people and a city of 100,000 have spoken on the issue. And that is not enough, they should be 10 times- minimum 10 to a hundred times more than that.
Amy Johnson 4:24
Then I'll say personally am I am nervous about having someone who's quote unquote, a professional city manager being the one who's in charge rather than the person who we elect because, say we elect someone who we agree with the values in there. We want them to be able to have changes and to have real influence in the city and then their hands are really tied because of this new form of government that we are creating. My name is Amy Johnson. Again, I can see some like rationale behind trying to make sure that there's not some corrupt person who takes over the city but- but at the same time, like there's, I just don't see that it is necessary or like you couldn't end up with someone who's a corrupt city manager, which we did have have happened before.
John Duggar 5:11
That, you know, we have a very diverse community here. I've seen very little people of color here. I've seen very little, from our large immigrant communities, those voices are important and they're often marginalized and not included, and we need to do better. We need to include everyone and it's harder, I understand that, it takes more time, but that makes it so much more credible and so much more robust.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai