HomeMy WebLinkAbout04-13-25 Public Comment - K. Silvestri - Comment for Local Government Study CommissionFrom:Kenneth Silvestri
To:Bozeman Goverment Study Commission
Subject:[EXTERNAL]Comment for Local Government Study Commission
Date:Sunday, April 13, 2025 1:38:30 PM
Attachments:Silvestri Study Commission Comment.pdf
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Dear Local Study Commission Members,
Attached is my comment and suggestions for changing the structure of Bozeman's CityGovernment and Charter.
Thank you for taking the time to read my comments and consider my input and suggestions.
Godspeed to you in this important task.
Always happy to discuss any of this in-person, please reach out if you have questions.
Respectfully,
Ken Silvestri
5785 Saxon Way, ABozeman, MT 59718
928-607-0816
First, thank you for volunteering your time and serving on
this study commission to potentially improve our local city
government’s form and function.
I attended the public input meeting on Thursday, April 3rd.
While I did not provide a public comment as in-writing was
a better way to provide all my opinions and ideas on this
subject, I greatly appreciate that you gave us the
opportunity to voice our concerns and ideas with a
well-run meeting. However, one meeting is insufficient for
capturing the public input. Please offer more opportunities.
To improve our local city government, I urge you to
consider the following changes to the structure of our local
government to better respond to the needs of all Bozeman
residents.
● District Representation and Voting for the City
Commission
● Replace City Manager with Full-Time Executive
At-Large Elected Mayor
● Restore Balance to the City’s Prioritization of Growth
and Development Over Existing Residents
● Strengthen Ethics Rules for City Commissioners,
Board Members, and Staff
District Representation and Voting for the City
Commission
District representation would create a more responsive
City Commission by being closer to and providing deeper
insight into the neighborhoods and the concerns that
directly impact their quality of life. At-large elections, by
contrast, can be prone to concentrating representation
from a single or limited number of areas within the city, be
confined to certain groups, and potentially be removed
from what is happening across the city. Dr. Jessica
Trounstine, Political Science Professor from Vanderbilt
University asserts through her extensive research on
comparing the two representation systems that:
“Adopting district elections will improve descriptive
representation for marginalized groups, produce
councilors who are closer to voters, and generate
political outcomes that are more likely to address the
needs of the neighborhoods…..Generally, at-large
elections shift the representation toward voters rather
than residents. In a districted system, regardless of
level of turnout in an area, the area receives
representation on the council” (Trounstine, 2025,
District vs. At-Large Elections)
A candidate that lives within the district would be more
accountable to those concerns and less susceptible to
outside special interests that are increasingly embedding
themselves throughout our local City government. For
example, a lobbyist for Co-Working Companies serves or
did serve on our Community Development Board. I highly
doubt it is a simple coincidence that we now have more
co-work multi-use buildings and developments in
Bozeman.
As Bozeman has grown and invited in large developers
and big tech financial interests to solve our “affordable”
housing problem, we now have outside groups and
wealthy developers donating to and heavily lobbying City
Commissioners, sometimes through off the record
conversations, in hopes that they will influence the policies
and future of our City to their benefit. A neighborhood
district commissioner candidate would be less susceptible
to those special interests as they can appeal to voters in
their districts by serving on housing association boards,
having children who attend the same schools and sporting
events, attending the same churches and through
neighborhood events and living within those districts.
Furthermore, at-large elections tend to favor those with
more resources and time to campaign across the city
versus campaigning within a more narrow and isolated
portion of the city amongst one’s neighbors that takes less
time and financial resources. The authors of “Electoral
Institutions, Gender Stereotypes, and Women’s Local
Representation” found that “at-large elections are typically
more competitive and require more campaign funds and
larger mobilization efforts for candidates” (Crowder-Meyer,
M., Gadarian, S. K., & Trounstine, J., 2015)
One could argue, however, that at-large elections would
require a candidate to appeal to a broader swath of the
electorate, yet the political makeup and ideology, especially
with regards to housing, of the current City Commission is
very homogeneous and uniform in its goals and vision.
One cautionary note on if the City moves to district voting
and representation, there needs to be safeguards in place
to mitigate gerry meandering those districts to advantage
one political group or agenda, i.e. breaking up
single-family homeowners and spreading them out across
other districts so that renters have more elected
commissioners and thereby diluting the voice of one
group. Perhaps, some sort of independent redistricting
commission made up of neighborhood association
representatives could preempt gerrymandering.
Replace City Manager with Executive At-Large Elected
Mayor
As the City Manager video scandal highlighted, it is
inherently risky to allow an unelected City Manager to
wield so much power over our City services, policies and
agendas. This is especially true when the City Manager is
recruited as an outsider who puts themselves before the
people of Bozeman. After that video, it proved very
difficult to remove a City Manager who commits
misconduct without providing taxpayer funded severance
pay.
Moreover, an executive mayor elected at-large with direct
power over City services and Departments can be held
accountable to the voters for the quality of those services
and Departments. They can affect needed change in these
services and Departments without having to go through
the filter of a City Manager who may be more prone to
protect those employees in return for loyalty at the
expense of the public’s interest. A degree of separation
from other City Commissioners is still warranted to keep
them from politicizing the City staff.
Managing the day-to-day operations of the City would
necessitate the move to a full-time and higher paid
executive mayor.
It would also be worth considering veto power for this
executive mayor to provide an additional check on City
Commission votes that defy the majority opinion and will of
the City residents.
Restore Balance to the City’s Prioritization of Growth
and Development Over Existing Residents
Although the State mandates decisions on development to
maintain consistency for developers, the City needs to
restore balance to this process as many residents across
the City rightfully view it as unfair and even now attempts
to silence and exclude their voices with the Affordable
Housing Ordinance that grants the authority to approve
proposed controversial developments to an unelected City
administrator.
For far too long, the City has prioritized developers and
development over the safety and well-being of the citizens
who currently live in and own property in Bozeman. The
current form of government is clearly not working to
achieve balance between providing housing and
protecting the quality of life for existing residents. This
prioritization of developers over us is one of the primary
reasons myself and many other residents voted for this
study commission.
Therefore, please consider the following proposals to
restore balance to include homeowners and grant them
more of a check on this process:
● Direct ballot votes on the City growth plan every 5
years. With something this impactful to our safety,
well-being, and future, residents should be able to
vote on the effectiveness of the growth plan. While the
City needs a guiding document for growth and
development, it should be directly approved by the
people of Bozeman. According to ChatGPT, 10 major
cities have held direct referendums on growth and
development plans or issues, including Boulder,
Colorado; Seattle, Washington; Austin, Texas.
(https://chatgpt.com/share/67f5bcf9-2cf4-800f-81cd-d
50d508c1892) Thus, it is possible and feasible to
carry out these direct referendums without
compromising the City’s ability to plan for the future
and would give the public voice on the future of their
City, affirming the pace and direction of growth and
development or putting some brakes on it when
needed.
● The City Charter should provide a threshold
mechanism that ties development to existing
resources, infrastructure, and services. For example,
if there are not enough police officers to enforce minor
traffic violations, daycare availability, or mental health
providers, then no more development gets approved
until we have enough. This is currently putting our
safety and overall well-being at risk. Or, if water
projections do not support the amount of units, then
the development does not get approved until there is
a sufficient water supply obtained. The current cash in
lieu of water rights is on pace to exhaust our water
supply in the near future while offloading the risks and
costs of a finite water supply onto existing residents.
According to ChatGPT, several major cities have
threshold mechanisms for the number of police
officers and/or school teachers, including Portland,
Oregon; Denver, Colorado; Seattle, Washington.
(https://chatgpt.com/share/67f5bee5-6600-800f-a520-
95827dbcf920)
The rejection of the first responder levy highlights how
the residents are growing increasingly dissatisfied
with paying ever higher taxes for the infrastructure
and services needed to support dense development,
which in turn, puts enormous strain on that
infrastructure and services depriving us of quality that
we are paying for. These increased taxes for schools,
sewer systems, roads, first responders are pricing
middle income and elderly people on fixed incomes
out of the City. I have had work colleagues move
away because they can’t afford the increase in taxes.
Moreover, before the levy passed, the City Manager
and Police Chief gave the residents an unfair
ultimatum choice of vote to increase your taxes and
we will start providing traffic enforcement. Not only is
this choice unfair, not enforcing traffic rules to
accommodate all the increased dense development
and influx of new residents living in them is putting our
safety at risk.
● Overhaul the Community Development Board to
include equal representation from neighborhood
associations, community members instead of just
developers, architects, housing lobbyists etc. who all
stand to gain from the approval of the development in
question.
Three examples illustrate how this development process
has heavily prioritized developers over the people of
Bozeman:
Having gone through this process, it sure seemed like the
City Planning Department heavily favored the developer.
When I rallied my neighbors to meet the percentage of
adjacent property owners to trigger a lower threshold vote
on the City Commission, the City Planning Department
and Developer magically found 36 more adjacent property
owners to prevent triggering that threshold.
During the UDC rewrite, per a records request, the
stakeholders invited to meet with the consultants and the
City were primarily developers and the Bozeman Tenants
Union, leaving out neighborhood associations and
homeowners most affected by the proposed changes.
Conveniently many of the developers invited appeared on
Mayor Cunningham’s campaign donor list. This caused
much distrust with the City and many residents leading to
outrage and pushback that postponed the UDC rewrite.
Lastly, Deputy Mayor Morrison, in the More Perfect Union
video, “We Went to Montana: The Housing Inequality Will
Shock You,” commented that the “system is rigged in favor
of developers.” We need to put in measures to unrig the
system.
Strengthen Ethics Rules and Codes for City
Commissioners, Board Members, and Staff
As big investment money pours into Bozeman from
wealthy financial interests, the risk for endemic
widespread corruption has significantly increased,
particularly in the development approval process. A former
City Commissioner resided in one of Andy Hollaran’s
recently built apartment complexes, which raises serious
questions of any special treatment in exchange for votes
and influence. Even if that did not occur and was not
against laws or ethics rules, this did not seem appropriate
by any means.
Moreover, when one pulls the campaign donor list for City
Commissioners, many of the most active developers in the
City appear on that list. As mentioned previously, those
developers were invited to basically rewrite the zoning
code at the expense of residents who pay property taxes.
At the very least, a City Commissioner should have to
recuse themselves in matters involving a campaign donor
or declare a conflict of interest and explain how they will
remain objective. This seems to be the case but is not
clear or seemingly consistently practiced by the
commissioners.
During the aftermath of the disgraceful City Manager
video, it was revealed that the mayor was meeting with
developers off the record raising suspicions of corruption.
This practice needs to be strictly prohibited with
documentation required for any and all meetings with
developers, when, why and what was discussed.
To my knowledge, the commissioners are also not
required to complete financial disclosures or post them in
an easily accessible location for the public to access and
monitor.
City Board members should not have contracts with the
City in any capacity such as creating bike transportation
plans or indirectly benefit from crafting a growth plan or
recommending development projects be approved that
favors increasing their business opportunities and profits.
In conclusion, there is a serious trust deficit currently
between the City and its residents with many citizens
rightfully feeling that this form of government is no longer
working for them and producing outcomes that balance
competing interests in ways that maintain our quality of
life. We can do and deserve better.
Thank you for taking the time to consider my ideas and
wish you all the wisdom and grace in making choices that
chart our City’s future government.
Respectfully,
Ken Silvestri
5785 Saxon Way, A
Bozeman, MT 59718