Is Troy's Board and Commission Process Broken?

A system to get new residents involved in local government goes ignored

On December 31st, the Mayor, adhering to state law, had the responsibility to appoint replacements for two members of the City’s Planning Commission whose terms had expired. Surprisingly, the Mayor chose to reappoint the existing members, overlooking applications from other highly qualified local citizens.

A Public Records Request

This publication, in pursuit of transparency, requested public records in late December, revealing applications from four citizens. The four individuals included:

• A man from Long Street who had expressed interest in the role “because nobody on City Council listens to the Citizens of Troy and this town needs some change”, according to this individual’s application.

• A woman from Surrey Road applied. This applicant claims she is a life-long resident of Troy and was looking to give back. This individual has post-graduate degrees in Education and works in the education field. This person was also a graduate of Leadership Troy.

• Another woman from West Franklin Street applied to serve on the Planning Commission. This person is retired from the Air Force Research Laboratory and has a degree in Engineering. This person lives in the historic district and believes “there is a need for better representation of the entire downtown area.”

• A final application came from another woman on Oak Street. This individual stated that she was a “30-year Troy resident and homeowner within walking distance of the Square who visits downtown daily.” She also claims that “[she is] representative of simiar stakeholders whose property values hinge on the City’s balance of preservation of existing desirable qualities and growth”.

On the face, any of the women who applied for these two open seats have put foward strong resumes for consideration to appointment to the Planning Commission. And each of these four individuals each went through the process of filing an online application through the city’s website. Further research indicates that at least one of the applicants was never even approached about her application; no follow up letter, phone call or other personalized communication was received by this applicant.

A Broken Process

This situation raises questions about the online application process, introduced four years ago under the current Mayor. The process was meant to democratize and open up participation in city boards and commissions. However, the recent appointments suggest a disconnection between this intended openness and the actual decision-making process. This publication discussed this process in an earlier newsletter.

Ostensibly, the idea behind the online process was to broaden the pool of applicants to these city boards and commissions. In the past, learning about and applying for these positons was a very closed process. The online application appeared to be a tool to open up these volunteer positions to more citizens. Residents could go on the city’s webiste, learn about these boards, read meeting minutes and agendas and then choose to fill out an application.

In return, the Mayor would have a ready pool of applicants to choose from when seats on boards and commissions came open; information was gathered to not only gauge an individual’s interest in a board or commission role, but also find out about this person’s vocational and educational background. The system that was created seemed like an opportunity for the local government to build trust and transparency with the citizens it is charged to serve and increased competence and dedication to these important board and commission roles.

Making The Decision

And when the time came to make a decision on who to appoint to the City’s Planning Commission, not only were the four new applicants not successful in being appointed, rather, the decision was made to just re-appoint the two sitting individuals.

To make the situation worse, it is not clear that the two re-appointed members even re-applied to serve on the Planning Commission. If those individuals did re-apply, they must have re-applied just before the end of the term because those applications were not supplied to this publication through the public records request made in late December, just days before the end of their terms.

The reappointment of the existing members, without apparent reapplication, contradicts the promise of transparency and openness. The absence of effort to engage with new applicants is a troubling sign of disregard for citizen involvement. This approach not only erodes confidence in local government but also undermines the value of the online application system.

Losing Trust in Government

Four city residents took the time to apply for the Planning Commission. These individuals, under their own initative, went to the city’s website, they researched the process to get appointed and they submitted the required the information on an online form. And in the end, their efforts went completely ignored by their community’s leadership.

This is how trust in government is lost.

The whole point of having an online system where citizens can apply to voluntarily serve on a citizen board or commission is in part is to increase transparency and openness in government and to ensure that qualified and intersted individuals are tapped to serve on these boards and commissions.

The current system certainly was not designed to promote individuals serving on these boards to have what is akin to having a lifetime appointment. At the end of these six years terms, one of the reappointment members will have served on the Planning Commission for over 15 years and the other for 10 years.

If the city is not going to use the system it helped create to acheive more competence, openness and trasparency by broadning the pool of applicants for citizen boards and commissions, then the city should simply remove the tool.

Keeping an application system up to show a committment to openness, transparency and competency that doesn’t exist in practice is not helpful to the residents of this community.

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