Sims Succeeds Where Smothers Failed

Newly elected High Point Mayor Bernita Sims on Thursday, Dec. 6 pulled off a power grab that hasn't been tried since 2003, when former Mayor Becky Smothers attempted it: abolishing the High Point City Council's committee system and centralizing all control of the council under the mayor.

Sims made the changes at the first meeting after her Monday, Dec. 3 swearing-in, a meeting usually used to set up the committees.

The High Point City Council has long operated under a system that is unusual among North Carolina cities but is immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the workings of Congress or of state legislatures. Power on the City Council was diffused among several committees, each chaired by a councilmember, usually one with substantial time on the City Council.

The City Council had, under shifting names, committees for finance, public safety, planning and development and at times other issues. Issues that came to the City Council were referred to the appropriate committee. The committee heard presentations from staff members, researched the issues then voted to recommend that the City Council approve or reject the motion.

The City Council usually voted to follow the recommendations of its committees with little discussion. The committees, after all, had done the research on the issue, and most City Council votes were routine to begin with. City councilmembers were free to vote against the recommendation of a committee, or to ask for discussion on it, but rarely did so except on controversial issues.

That's how Congress and the North Carolina General Assembly work, and it's necessary for a large legislative body, in which hundreds of people can't hear every issue. It's more unusual for a small body such as a city council, although a city council is technically a legislative body.

The High Point City Council often approved a week's worth of recommendations from a committee with one vote, unless one or more councilmembers wanted to break one off for discussion.

The net result of the system was to diffuse power among members of the council. Many issues were decided, and many proposals killed, in committee, usually out of sight of the mayor. Traditionally, High Point mayors have not chaired committees.

That gave the committee chairmen unusual power, and also allowed them to use their expertise. Former Councilmember and current Guilford County Commissioner Bill Bencini, for example, is an expert on land-use planning. Former Councilmember and current state House Rep. John Faircloth was a former High Point police chief, and so a public safety expert.

No more. Now, nothing will be done by the City County in a meeting not run by Sims.

Sims on Thursday completely scratched the City Council's entire committee system. To understand how she did so, you have to understand another oddity of the High Point City Council's traditional way of doing business: the legislative fiction of the "committee of the whole." A legislative body acts as a committee of the whole when it wants all of the members of the body to hear the details of an issue before a vote. Congress hasn't used that mechanism since 1986.

For years, the Monday meeting that everyone considers a High Point City Council meeting has actually been a meeting of the City Council's Committee of the Whole – a fine distinction, but one that mattered in High Point's case.

The fiction was a vestigial leftover from the days when the City Council regularly held its actual meetings on Thursday mornings, but met on Monday as a committee of the whole to hear recommendations from the other committees. The Committee of the Whole made recommendations to the City Council – itself – which were then voted on at the Thursday City Council meetings.

The City Council for years has almost never met as the City Council on Thursdays, instead reserving Thursdays for briefings by High Point City Manager Strib Boynton and his staff. So, at the end of the Monday meeting, a councilmember would make a motion to make all action final – meaning that a vote of the Committee of the Whole became a vote of the City Council, and a full City Council meeting wasn't needed on Thursday. That was useful for City councilmembers whose work schedules didn't allow them to attend daytime meetings.

The City Council system was unusual – like many things in High Point – but worked. It was easy to make fun of the City Council for holding what were sometimes 20-minute meetings, but the system was indisputably efficient. And the City Council could always vote to not refer big issues to committee at all, avoiding the type of problem the Guilford County Board of Education created when it tried to handle a half-billion-dollar construction program primarily in committee.

The last time a mayor tried to eliminate the committee system was in 2003, when Smothers retook the mayor's chair from Arnold Koonce. Smothers, flush with victory, announced that she was going to scrap the committees and do all the City Council's business in meetings of the full council run by Smothers.

The results were not pretty. In 2003, the City Council was dominated by long-time councilmembers, many of whom chaired committees, and few of whom were willing to grant Smothers, fresh from a four-year exile from the City Council, that kind of procedural power.

A delegation of councilmembers, led by Bencini, sat Smothers down and told her the facts of life – that there was no way they were going to vote for Smothers' attempt to centralize power under the mayor. The proposal died in that room.

The surprising thing about the major change Sims made Thursday in the City Council's way of doing business was that it met no such opposition.

The new City Council, having, over two years, lost Bencini, Faircloth and long-time Councilmembers Chris Whitley and Latimer Alexander, lacked the experience and to oppose Sims. And it's quite possible that some of the new councilmembers weren't even aware of what she was doing.

Sims actually did away with the committee system in a vote to approve the ordinance establishing the City Council's meeting schedule. Sims merely proposed a meeting schedule that did not include meetings of High Point's traditional committees.

Ward 3 Councilmember Judy Mendenhall made the motion. Smothers seconded it. The motion passed 9 to 0, and that was that.

From now on, the Monday night meetings will be City Council meetings – not meetings of the Committee of the Whole. And if any issues do need research and deliberation in committee, they will be done during the Thursday meetings, which will now be meetings of the Committee of the Whole.

In other words, all councilmembers will be expected to attend Monday's City Council meetings, chaired by Sims, and if a Thursday committee meeting is necessary, which it almost certainly will be, all councilmembers will be expected to attend – and that meeting, too, will be chaired by Sims. Votes at the Monday meetings will be votes of the City Council, and will require no separate vote to be final.

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Traditionally, the one committee meeting attended by most, and sometimes all, councilmembers was the meeting of the City Council's Finance Committee, which were held at 3:30 p.m. Monday, before the 4:45 p.m. Committee of the Whole meeting. The Finance Committee made recommendations on anything that required spending money.

Sims retained the Finance Committee meeting, since most councilmembers show up for it anyway, but it will now be, according to High Point City Clerk Lisa Vierling, a "Committee of the Whole finance meeting," run by Sims, instead of a separate Finance Committee chairman – and all members will be required to attend.

Sims said, "Based on the number of the new individuals on the council, we go to Committee of the Whole, so everyone will be able to get all the information and participate in making all the decisions."

Sims also told the councilmembers to keep their Thursday mornings free for Committee of the Whole meetings and manager's briefings. She said, "I would ask that you all block this time on your calendars on the front end so you don't get surprised when there's a meeting at that time."

The new system pretty much guarantees Thursday morning meetings – one week, a committee of the whole meeting, the next, a city manager's briefing.

Sims justified the new system, particularly the Thursday morning meetings, based on the number of new councilmembers. She said, "That's part of the learning curve, and if you're not at those meetings, you're in danger of missing things."

The new system was obviously arranged before Thursday's meeting.

Mendenhall said that, if there were only a couple of spending items on the City Council's agenda, the "Committee of the Whole finance committee" might not have to meet.

"We will give you notice prior to that," she said. "We can do that in council meetings."

Note the "we," which may be an early sign that Mendenhall may wind up in the voting majority Sims will have to assemble if she is to accomplish much as mayor.

Boynton, too, knew in advance about the abolishment of the committees.

"Bernita and I talked about this," he said. "We thought it might be helpful for the new councilmembers, who wanted to know when we really meet ... to give some times so that we don't just meet willy-nilly."

Councilmember Foster Douglas asked how the new system would allow the City Council to do in-depth research on issues of the sort done by the traditional committees.

Sims responded that it would work much the same way, but at Thursday meetings – which raises the likelihood of very long Thursday meetings.

"I will chair those meetings," she said. "It will come before the committee of the whole. The only difference is there is not a set, different committee that handles that issue."

The City Council voted 8 to 1 to elect At-Large Councilmember Britt Moore mayor pro tem. Douglas, who has more seniority than Moore, cast the only no vote. Foster said that recent City Council practice has been to elect a senior councilmember mayor pro tem.

"Every since I've been on the council, it was either you, Latimer or Chris, who were the three senior members of the council," Douglas protested to Sims. "Nobody else was even put up."

Sims said it used to be a requirement that the mayor pro tem be an at-large councilmember, but that was changed several years ago. In any case, she said, "This council makes the decision on how this council wants it to work."

Douglas, who, along with former Ward 3 Councilmember Mike Pugh, who Mendenhall defeated in November, was definitely not part of Smothers' voting bloc, is shaping up to be a thorn in Sims' side, as he was in Smothers'. Whether or not he is joined by any new councilmembers remains to be seen.

Sims has said she will also set up three mayor's commissions – commissions of private citizens to advise the council. She said there will be three committees: one on youth, family and community issues; one on culture and the arts; and one to bring "millennials" – High Point citizens between 18 and 35, who are largely disconnected from the political process – into the process.

Sims has not specified how the mayor's commissions will work.