Best Way To Decide Mayor’s Outside Income Question Is To Let City Voters Decide
For the record, Mayor Eddie Sundquist has done absolutely nothing wrong by working small teaching or lawyer jobs in his non-work hours as long as those jobs are done at home and don’t use city resources.
Sundquist is teaching an MBA course at St. Bonaventure University and serves as Chautauqua County Court examiner, a position responsible for oversight of the annual accounting of guardians. Sundquist told The Post-Journal that an annual accounting is due each May. As a result, his time as the court examiner is mainly limited to reviewing the reports submitted to Chautauqua County.
The positions bring some additional income, to be sure, but nothing that would replace his income as mayor. It’s similar to a police officer moonlighting as private security at a basketball game.
It’s important to note that there is currently nothing in the City Charter saying the mayor can’t have outside income. The only thing Sundquist has broken is convention. For decades, Jamestown’s mayor didn’t pursue opportunities for outside income. In some cases that was because the mayor was retired. Other mayors made the choice that the mayor’s salary was enough to not require outside income to live comfortably. For more than five decades, no mayor earned income outside of the mayor’s salary.
It’s understandable that some city residents are upset to see convention change. It’s also understandable that some city residents wonder what the big deal is if Sundquist or any other mayor earns some outside income.
In our view, outside income only becomes a problem if the outside income encroaches upon the mayor’s ability to conduct city business. If the mayor’s pursuit of outside income means the mayor isn’t available to deal with issues quickly, it’s a problem. If the mayor’s pursuit of outside income involves the use of city supplies, it’s a really big problem. It would be major problem if the mayor’s outside income leads to conflicts of interest with the duties required of a mayor.
Decades of convention meant the City Council never had to worry about such contingencies. So it’s appropriate to consider a change to the City Charter that would tie a mayor’s ability to earn outside income to approval by the City Council. If the council approves of the idea then it will be put on the November election ballot for approval by city voters.
The proposal the council is making is commonly used in the non-profit world and is similar to the process Jamestown police officers use if they want to engage in work outside the scope of their city employment. In our opinion it’s a reasonable change to the City Charter. The council should approve the language give voters the power to decide the issue.