My wife’s grandfather first began many years of summer residency in St. Ignace in the early 1920s and we have followed in his footsteps for each of the last 45 years. We are proud to say that we have friends in your community and have enjoyed watching the city as it continues and expands its most interesting history. However, there is much concern that your local government that supposedly operated under the aegis of the St. Ignace City Charter has literally lost much of its credibility, and when this happens, such credibility cannot be regained.

Allow me to mention that it was my pleasure to serve from 1985 to 1989 as an elected member of the city council of our Missouri town of approximately 75,000 citizens with an annual budget of about $100 million. Like St. Ignace, our city operates under a charter form of government with a non-partisan city council headed by a mayor where members each have one vote and where they hire a professionally trained city manager to act like a CEO. The city council has the ultimate authority in local government, not directly, but through the city manager, and acts as a board of directors. Only the city manager has the authority to hire and fire city department heads, although he may delegate the authority for employees at a lower level. If council is not satisfied with the performance of the city manager, the manager can be removed by a simple majority vote of the council. The advantages of such a system are that potential politics, cronyism, favoritism, and personal conflict between city and council members are absent and city government is run like business. Council members here are forbidden to interfere in any way with city employees and our charter specifically says that failure to follow this directive shall result in forfeiture of office. This does not imply that council members have no input on city issues. They simply must proceed through the professionally trained city manager. Of course, all of this presupposes that the council hires a competent, independent city manager in the first place, one who is not beholden to anyone in the given city. I believe our charter has been in effect since 1949.

With all that in mind, I am aware through The St. Ignace News that your city council has been discussing some changes to your charter but they appear to be minor in nature. It certainly appears that your charter is different from ours. The very recent fiasco involving two council members pushing for a rapid decision to hire a particular candidate for police chief who was obviously under earlier clouds as well as being currently investigated by the FBI is, or should be, embarrassing to the City of St. Ignace. Some key words here are “pushing” and “rapid decision.” I would ask why St. Ignace even has a city manager form of government with a council that has such powers to interview prospective employees, and, I assume, hire and fire them.

Folks like us who return year after year to St. Ignace will no doubt continue to do so because of our love for the people and the surroundings of your area. We know of and appreciate the efforts that several St. Ignace groups and individuals have made to enhance offerings for locals as well as tourists – fish feast, auto show, marina concerts, Arts Dockside, fireworks, to name just a few. But this recent controversy involving the choice of a police chief frankly calls into question the ability of some individuals concerned with certain government issues to make decisions that are beneficial to the City of St. Ignace. (And let’s not forget the argument between the marina and the arts program, and, although, not a city issue, the question of the exorbitant insurance premiums paid by the Mackinac Bridge Authority with such small returns.)

It appears that consideration must be given to a serious study of more substantive issues in the St. Ignace City Charter than have recently been visited.

Edwin Kaiser Columbia, Missouri