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Minutes of a Public Hearing <br />October 6, 2010 <br />Page 12 <br />So, the United States generally is faced with these kinds of issues and I would hate to see them <br />get involved in campaign politics or in elections where the problems, the real problems that that <br />issue has to deal with, are sometimes not very well-known. <br />So, that's kind of where I take the discussion if you look at governance. What I want is a system <br />where people can deliberate. Where a community can talk about their future. They can have <br />sessions like this where you have had a Charter Review Commission that's met for many <br />months. They are coming back reporting to you what they did and why they did it and then <br />you'll have the opportunity to vote on that. So I don't think you're going to lose the most <br />important part from my perspective of governance by eliminating some kind of referendum <br />though that's an issue for you to decide. . The proposal that's made is a modification. Council can <br />and they have the sole discretion it says in the recommendations, to put an issue to referendum. <br />Most of the politicians I know of, if the issue gets very controversial, they love to hand it off <br />rather than decide it themselves. A lot of issues may go to referendum an yway but hopefully <br />they will be better discussed and better known so that voters can vote on them. <br />Abraham Lincoln was absolutely right and I will conclude, you can't fool all the people all the <br />time, but you can fool some of the people almost all of the time and all of the people some of the <br />time. The issue is-you've got to have a process where people can get educated over time and I <br />would argue elections are not the best kind of process by which you educate a community. It <br />may be better to have representatives deal with the issue and then have those representatives <br />come back like they're doing tonight and say, here's what we did. Here's why we did this and <br />engage in a conversation. <br />Depending on your values, it's going to determine how you vote obviously and there's no magic <br />solution. All I'm talking about is just some consideration as you make the decision that's really <br />important to the community. Because I think in Lakewood, it's an aging population. A lot of <br />people aze on retirement. I'd hate to see water rates increase for people on those kind of fixed <br />incomes, but then I think about what's going to happen if we don't deal with that issue and I <br />would rather deal with that issue as best we can. But again, there's going to be no magic <br />solution. <br />Well I appreciate being invited. I appreciate talking with you. I'll be glad to answer any <br />questions you may have and you are always free to register at Cleveland State and take classes. <br />Mayor Rinker stated, what I would like to do now is, Mr. Diemert is going to get up, he'll speak <br />for a few minutes and then I thought if we take a bit of a break and then when we come back <br />we'll open up the floor for questions and answers from our panel.