In recent years, an increasing public interest in local city governance has been driving a critical examination of how local laws and decisions get made. That scrutiny has led to several changes in how local board conduct themselves, most recently resulting in a significant reform to how Wright City aldermen propose new laws.

The city’s board of aldermen in January adopted a new requirement that all new city ordinances must be proposed and sponsored by individual aldermen. Wright City is the first government in Warren County to adopt such a policy.

To understand why that change is meaningful, we need to give a quick look at how local towns typically pass laws:
1) Aldermen, as a group, discuss a problem or future objective that needs to be addressed with a new or revised ordinance.
2) Aldermen direct their city attorney and staff to draft an ordinance that meets their objective while complying with all state and federal laws.
3) The draft ordinance is presented to aldermen for amendment and approval.
4) Alternately, city staff can also initiate the above process and propose an ordinance for aldermen to approve.

But now, the change in Wright City requires at least one alderman to be directly involved in drafting and proposing an ordinance from start to finish. Aldermen approved the change to their ordinance procedure with a 3-0 vote Jan. 27, with Alderman Nathan Rohr absent.

Alderman Ramiz Hakim is the one who proposed the change to his fellow board members. He said aldermen should bear the burden of creating and defending new laws, rather than being allowed to shift that responsibility to city staff.

“It’s our job to legislate, not to be driven by city staff. It will also ensure that criticism and questions are directed toward elected officials, as opposed to those that work in City Hall,” Hakim said. “Although I think it’s important to receive feedback and input from city staff. ... This doesn’t stop the mayor or city attorney from wanting to propose a new law. But it would require an alderman to sponsor it.”

The new lawmaking procedure was fully supported by aldermen Don Andrews and Karey Owens. They and Hakim are all relatively new aldermen who each joined the city board within the last two years.

“I’m surprised more cities haven’t been doing this,” said Andrews, in support of the new policy.

Hakim commented that it would still be prudent for aldermen to have proposed ordinances vetted by the city attorney and staff to ensure they are consistent with existing law. A good alderman would also build consensus for an idea before springing something on the rest of the board, he said.

“This is not a dictatorship. The idea behind it is people are working together and having conversations,” Hakim said.