The way Bill Parks sees it, if eight is good then ten must be better.
The councilmember who represents northeast Phoenix is overwhelmed by the growth of his district since the district system was first enacted a decade ago. His territory runs from Sunnyslope to Carefree Highway, with an estimated 175,000 folks living there.
And that, he says, is too much.
Parks will get some relief in 1991, after the results of the decade-end census are known. Some of Parks' constituents will wind up in other districts, probably with Paul Johnson as their councilmember. But, even with the realignment, Parks points out that will still leave each district with about 120,000 residents. Still too much, he insists.
What Parks has in mind is adding two more members to the Phoenix City Council. The net result would be to reduce each district to about 100,000 residents. "That might be the right number," he says.
Parks notes when the district system was first enacted, the city had a population of about 800,000, which translated into his ratio of 1 to 100,000. He says he sees no reason not to maintain that ratio after the 1990 census, when the population is estimated to reach the one million mark.
Of course, following Parks' logic the city might wind up expanding the council again at the end of the century, reaching a full dozen districts. That doesn't bother him at all.
"I've looked at the twenty largest cities in the country and we--along with San Diego--have the smallest city council," he says. "The average is fifteen." Parks says this means Phoenix could add a new councilmember for each 100,000 additional residents "for a couple of decades or more" and still not have a council larger than the average for cities of comparable size.
Although Parks has been talking up the idea on the ninth floor of City Hall, where the council offices are located, the idea has generated little enthusiasm among his colleagues.
Duane Pell acknowledges the size of his northwest Phoenix district does cause problems. More to the point, he says, there are different interests within the district, which stretches from Dunlap Avenue north. "It's like night and day from about Bell Road north," he says. But he doesn't see any reason to add more districts--and more elected officials.
"The more people you have [on the council], the more logrolling you have," he says, with individual councilmembers trading votes to get special projects for their own constituents. "Of course, that's not to say we don't have any now."
Actually, part of Pell's concern will be alleviated even if the council retains the eight-district system after the 1990 census. His district, like that of Parks, has grown much more rapidly than the rest of the city. Preliminary indications are that both districts would start around Bell Road and run north from there, with the southern part of both areas becoming part of Paul Johnson's district.
Then, to keep all the districts roughly equal in population, the southern part of Johnson's district might wind up being represented by Howard Adams. The net result for Johnson would be a whole new constituency: More than half the residents of his new district would be new for the 1991 election. That presents Johnson with an interesting political dilemma, as all those new residents would have no particular loyalty to him when they go to the polls. By the same token, residents of his existing district who are dissatisfied with his representation would find themselves unable to vote against him.
Johnson, for his part, is content to live with the eight-district system, even if it means he ends up with a lot of new constituents and loses many of those he has. He says having only eight councilmembers means more accountability as voters know the names of each. Beyond that, he says, as the council gets larger, there might be a tendency to have many issues handled first by committees of only several councilmembers, much in the way the legislature reviews--and often kills--measures before they ever reach the full body.
"It's just amazing what those folks at the legislature get away with," Johnson says, with major issues often altered or killed in committee or, in some cases, not even getting a hearing.
Linda Nadolski says Parks may have the right idea with a ten-member council, but with the wrong execution. "I'd like to see two vice mayors," she says, putting two more people on the council besides the mayor who are elected by and represent the entire city.
Nadolski would be a likely beneficiary of such a change. More often than she'd like, she finds herself on the losing end of votes on issues that affect only her district, with the other councilmembers--whose districts would not be disrupted--finding no reason to support her stance.
That was pretty much what happened last week when the council decided to take money earmarked for neighborhoods adjacent to the Squaw Peak Parkway and instead use it elsewhere around the city for other highway-related projects. Only Nadolski, in whose district the highway is located, and Mayor Terry Goddard, who is elected citywide, voted against the move. (See related story on page 16.)
Nadolski says she agrees with Parks that it is hard to represent properly more than 100,000 residents. "That leads to a perception of arrogance," she says. "How do I communicate with that many people?"
But she says a better cure than more councilmembers might be to provide elected representation at the neighborhood level. Specifically, she thinks voters should be able to elect members of the local village planning committees.
Technically speaking, that wouldn't make a real difference, as the committees are only advisory to the council, which must approve or reject all suggestions. But Nadolski says elected planning committees would command more clout, making it harder for a councilmember to ignore a recommendation.
Goddard, the godfather of the current district system, says there is nothing sacred about having eight districts. He says, though, he hasn't heard a great outcry for changing the system. Without that, he says, the public won't approve the necessary change it would take in the city charter. "You can't create a demand for it," he explains. "It isn't like the district system where people said, `You've got to do it.'"
And, despite some general dissatisfaction with city government, there isn't any ground swell for the idea that having more councilmembers will somehow make a difference in controversial issues like the amphitheatre, the Suns' arena and the Grand Prix. Or, as Mary Rose Wilcox expresses it, "If it isn't broken, don't fix it."
HERE IS AQUI (GET IT?) Mary Rose Wilcox understands another cliche: Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one.
She and husband Earl, a state legislator, plan to begin publishing their own magazine this fall. The publication, titled Aqui (Spanish for "here"), will be aimed at second- and third-generation Hispanics.
"There's a whole segment of our community that doesn't get information," explains Mary Rose. She says the magazine is "kind of like a dream Earl and I have had for a long time" to fill that publishing void. For example, the first issue, due out in September, will feature the opening of the Mercado, a complex of offices and shops being developed in downtown Phoenix jointly by Fife Symington and Chicanos por la Causa.
Future issues will discuss the upcoming census and education, both with an eye on how they affect the Hispanic community.
But this new magazine is different from most others: The writing will be done not by hired staffers but by a public relations firm. The couple has contracted with Bill Meek, owner of Impact Communications, to put together most of the contents as well as handle the design and layout.
Meek is a hired gun for politicians and political causes. He worked with the couple in the unsuccessful attempt to block the English-only amendment to the state constitution. His most recent outing was trying to persuade voters they should approve the $10.4 billion ValTrans system--supported by Mary Rose and the rest of the Phoenix City Council but rejected overwhelmingly by county voters.
"We're operating under the direction of the people who are the publishers," Meek says. "We're doing writing assignments as they are given to us." And what kind of publication can readers expect from two Democrats who are active in politics and have to get reelected every two years? Meek responds, "I think you ought to ask them that question."
Mary Rose promises not to use the magazine to further the couple's career or beat the drum for favored political causes. "We're going to try to be as unbiased as we can," she says. "It's not going to be a Democratic--or a Republican--magazine." She says the publication also will use outside writers to provide a broader viewpoint.
The couple won't be the first politicos to stray into the world of publishing. Evan Mecham ran his own daily newspaper in the Valley from 1963 to 1966, with a Mecham-owned weekly published until 1973. And they won't be the last. Mecham, running again for governor, says he's "working on" reviving the newspaper, though no specific publication date is set.
