Nancy Denson May Be the Best Thing to Happen to ACC Commissioners

Mayor Nancy Denson was back in the Commission chamber Tuesday night, after being out for several weeks recuperating from an accident. To say that there was a bit of a different mood behind the rail might be an understatement. 

It's no secret that there's been a good bit of squabbling both behind the scenes and in the public eye between Denson and some Commissioners, especially Kelly Girtz, Mike Hamby, and Andy Herod over economic development.

There's tension between Denson and parts of the Commission, but before we fly off the handle and decry the lack of cooperation, you've got to wonder whether Nancy Denson isn't perhaps the best thing the Commission has going for it right now.

First, a little history. Eight of the ten people on the Commission began their service under former Mayor Heidi Davison. (Harry Sims, who has served with four mayors since he was elected in 1992, and freshman Jared Bailey are the exceptions.) The Heidi factor is important, especially for those more progressive commissioners, because while things were not always smooth under the Davison administration, the disagreements were largely ones of personalities, not policy.

Not so with Denson, who has carved out an agenda in many ways very different from the sensibilities of a majority of commissioners. Her opposition to putting a commissioner on the board of the Economic Development Foundation is one example, but there was also her proposal to cut night bus service and her campaign platform of cutting property taxes for senior citizens. The Commission shot the first down, and individual commissioners, who would rather I not quote them, tell me that the second is dead on arrival.

Denson, unlike Davison, comes to the job with different priorities and different policy ideas than a majority of the Commission, and that's actually a good thing. It's going to force commissioners who disagree with her (as they have and will continue to) to fish or cut bait. Either they start asserting their independence, or they let the Mayor run roughshod over them.

Under Davison, we talked a lot about "the Mayor and Commission" - a usually unified body that acted in concert on most policy issues, the occasional vociferous disagreement from Doug Lowry notwithstanding. Under Denson, it's clear that we're going to talk more about "the Mayor" and "the Commission" - two separate entities, sometimes in agreement, sometimes adversarial.

That's a good thing in a lot of respects. The charter, the document that created our local government, intended the Mayor to be a separate entity, with limited but potent powers. Commissioners are going to have to fight the Mayor, procedurally and sometimes publicly, to get their proposals up for a vote. It will be contentious at times. It will probably be a type of politics that is uncomfortable to many, and unfamiliar to most.

But it's how government works. 

Commissioners had it easy under Heidi Davison, because they mostly agreed on substance. Serving under Heidi was, if not easy, at least relatively smooth sailing. It encouraged a certain "get along, go along" style of governance.

Under Denson, they're going to have to grow more of a backbone and stand up for their prerogatives as Commissioners. They may take their case directly to the citizens and put pressure on the Mayor to move their legislation. It happens in governments all over the country every day.

It's time for commissioners, at least those who find themselves disagreeing with Denson on a regular basis, to stand up and begin defining the role of legislators who find themselves without a friendly Mayor on their side. The recent blowup over the EDF by Hamby, Girtz, and Herod, while poorly managed in some respects, is a good start, as was the (far better handled) fixes to Denson's budget proposal last month. We'll see if commissioners can keep the ball rolling.

And in three years, if they do, we'll see a stronger and more independent Commission, more secure in their values and ready to fight for them, regardless of who the next Mayor is.