Hey, not a bad idea;
The city of Los Angeles, California, will hold primary elections for mayor, eight city council seats, city attorney, city controller, and three community college board of trustees seats on March 7, 2017. Any race where no candidate earns a majority (50 percent plus one) of the primary votes cast will advance to a general election on May 16, 2017.
I would assume a city controller is essentially the CFO or Finance Director of the city. With the recent shenanigans with both our city attorney and finance director, maybe it is time to elect both. it wouldn’t be that hard to change the charter. Citizens would simply have to ask the Charter Revision Commission to put a change on the ballot. Do you think citizens should elect the City attorney and city finance director? Pretty simple. Just look at the county, the Sheriff, Treasurer and Auditor are all elected positions.
Not going to happen. The city attorney interpretation will turn the ballot question upside down. We thought we were voting to not repair or replace an outdoor pool but ended up with an indoor Olympic Aquatics Wimbledon complete with an expensive wall of shame.
Los Angeles is democracy. Sioux Falls is a charter bound sovereign nation with one dictator looking out for himself with little regard for the peasants. If Los Angeles didn’t have gangs, earthquakes, smog, and freeway parking lots it might be a better place to live. Democracy is worth sacrifice.
As a 15 year resident of Los Angeles, I can tell you, these are political insider positions. Only cronies run and only cronies win. Votes are typically cast as they are for most contests where the candidates are obscure, and unknown to the vast majority, on the basis of party, or familiar faction association (friend of the mayor etc.) The positions are thus filled with check collecting political friends, more than with hard-working professionals, who need to actually perform in order to keep their “job”.