Local governance

“ Give the city a proper sphere of local autonomy. Co-ordinate the departments of government, so as to establish responsibility and secure harmonious action. Simplify present city organization without destroying the two branches of government. Introduce new and improving methods, such as non-partisan primaries, civil service, uniform municipal accounting, and publicity of proceedings. Remedy bad social and economic conditions. Arouse civic interest. Do this, and there is no necessity for such a radical and revolutionary change as the universal adoption of a commission form. ”

“ It ought to keep open a perpetual communication with the localities—informing itself by their experience, and them by its own; giving advice freely when asked, volunteering it when seen to be required; compelling publicity and recordation of proceedings, and enforcing obedience to every general law which the Legislature has laid down on the subject of local management. That some such laws ought to be laid down few are likely to deny. ”

“ The improvement of administration at national level must be matched by a similar advance in local government administration. The expectations are high in our local communities because more resources, powers and responsibilities have been devolved to local governments. ”

“ With reference to objects which are not limited to localities, but deeply concern the interests of the general community, it is not less expedient that such governments should partake largely of the popular element; that a considerable fraction of the population in each locality should take a considerable part in the administration of the local affairs, or in the appointment and control of the local administrators. ”

“ Nonetheless, while special-purpose organizations abound and in many States the allocation of functions among units results in instances of overlap and vacuum, virtually every American lives within what he and his neighbors regard as a unit of local government with general responsibility and power for local affairs. ”

“ People's councils are empowered to adapt decisions and orders of higher authorities to their own individual needs. Local councils prepare plans and budgets in consonance with the national plans and, after decisions have been made at the national level, the local councils conform to the national policy. People's councils are involved in the day-to-day affairs of their constituencies in government services and administration, the maintenance of public order, the protection of state and communal property, and the protection of the rights of its citizens. ”

“ In order to determine this an administration will be necessary that comprises all fields of social activity. Here our municipalities will form an appropriate foundation. If they are too large to permit of obtaining an insight, they may be divided into districts. As in primitive society, all members of the communities who are of age, regardless of sex, will participate in the elections and choose the persons who are to take charge of the administration. At the head of all local bodies there will be a central administration. ”

“ A coalescence of the people into bodies politic in territorial areas now became complete.
The territorial series enters into the plan of government of modern civilized nations. Among ourselves, for example, we have the township, the county, the state, and the United States; the inhabitants of each of which are an organized body politic with powers of local self-government. Each organization is in full vitality and performs its functions within a definite sphere in which it is supreme. ”

“ I do not mean centralisation or the removal of that proper control which every local authority should maintain over its own officers. I would maintain intact the great principle of local government, which has been the bulwark of our social and political freedom. But local government may degenerate, and in small towns deteriorate into littleness: local affairs are too frequently avoided by those who are most fitted by intelligence and social standing to take part therein. ”

“ They held that each commune should be self-governing, and, while admitting the right of a central authority to levy men and money for the purposes of the state, they believed that in purely internal matters, as well as in determining the mode in which men and money were to be raised, the local government ought to be supreme. ”

“ In some localities the inhabitants have met together and voluntarily formed a municipal organization for the purposes of local government, adopting the form of a municipal constitution and charter, under which said officials have been appointed; and ordinances creating and regulating a police force, a fire department, a department of health, and making provision for the care of the insane and indigent poor and sick and for public schools, have been passed. ”

“ The local federation would be under the control of a local council, the members of which would be elected by the producing units or groups composing the local federation, very much as the modern city is managed by a council elected by wards or aldermanic districts. ”

“ The exercise of this authority by Congress is in strict accordance with the distribution of the governmental powers, which is one of the distinguishing features of our American institutions. Whatever in civilized communities individual citizens can do better than any public authority is wisely left to individuals. Whatever local organizations, such as counties, towns and cities, can more efficiently accomplish than individuals, or the State, or national government, belongs to the local authorities. ”

“ This necessity of invoking the aid of the state legislature, constantly felt in every rapidly growing city, tended to develop a feeling of dependence upon legislative intervention as an indispensable factor in the solution of local problems. ”

“ All that is needful is to give a sufficiently large sphere of action to the local authorities. Under one and the same central government there may be local governors, and provincial assemblies for local purposes. It may happen, for instance, that the people of different provinces may have preferences in favor of different modes of taxation. ”

“ The local authorities, equally innocent of studied economic views, deny that there is any misery; send leaders of deputations to the Local Government Board, who promptly send them back to the guardians ”

“ It has also been the immemorable policy in this country and in England to vest in municipal organizations certain local powers in respect to which they are peculiarly interested, and of the necessities of which they are much better informed than a general legislature possibly could be. ”

“ But if a local government, entirely or principally, derives its immediate origin from the locality itself, it naturally tends to clash with the central authority, or with the general administration;—the tendency being greater or less as its territory is larger or smaller, as its immediate origin is more or less popular, and as its attributes are more or less extensive. ”

“ Citizens shall exercise local government and self-government through local councils of deputies, executive, and administrative bodies, bodies of public territorial self-government, local referenda assemblies, and other forms of direct participation in state and public affairs. ”

“ The local self-government shall provide for an independent decision according to the law and on its responsibility by the population of the issues of local importance, possession, use and management of the municipal property. ”

“ The nation at large is interested in them in no other way than that in which it is interested in the private well-being of all its individual citizens. But among the duties classed as local, or performed by local functionaries, there are many which might with equal propriety be termed national, being the share belonging to the locality of some branch of the public administration in the efficiency of which the whole nation is alike interested: the jails, for instance, most of which in this country are under county management ”

“ What light could these inhabitants of the country, entirely governed by local influence, bring to the discussion of these questions? But they are masters at home; with the old men of the village they form an administrative council, which regulates the rate of taxation, keeps the public roads in repair, supplies granaries of reserved corn, and considers the best means of preventing bad harvests, and preserving social order. ”

“ A municipality was growing up upon a scale of magnitude unknown in their previous experience, requiring a special organization to conduct its local affairs. A necessity for a change in the plan of government must have forced itself more and more upon the attention of thoughtful men. The increase of numbers and of wealth, and the difficulty of managing their affairs, now complex from weight of numbers and diversity of interests, began to reveal the fact, it must be supposed, that they could not hold together under gentile institutions. ”

“ Local communities form the foundation of our Nation. Our Federal system of government is based on the determination of the people of the United States to govern themselves, to the extent possible, in small entities capable of responding quickly and effectively to particular community values and needs. ”

“ Where powers are delegated to them by a central or regional authority, local authorities shall, insofar as possible, be allowed discretion in adapting their exercise to local conditions. Local authorities shall be consulted, insofar as possible, in due time and in an appropriate way in the planning and decision-making processes for all matters which concern them directly. ”

“ To each State is left the care and supervision of those matters which directly and exclusively concern the citizens of the State, and thus individuality and initiative in the development of local spirit and character, are stimulated and encouraged, but those matters which properly concern the people as a whole are cared for by the representatives of the people in one department or another of the National Government. ”

“ Local Self-Government.—Such is the way in which local government has come about in the various States of the Union. Rooted in the systems that Englishmen have developed through the centuries, adapted to the new life and the peculiar conditions of the colonial period, it has spread with the population throughout the land. The management of local affairs by the people and their chosen representatives is a sound principle of government which holds a firm place in every part of our country. ”

“ The government, while preserving the principle of centralism, shall -- in accordance with the law -- delegate certain authorities to local administration units for the purpose of expediting and promoting economic, social, and cultural affairs, and increasing the participation of people in the development of the nation. ”

“ Each Governorate may, by majority vote, form sub-provincial regional councils, municipal
councils and other relevant local councils organized geographically, such as Qada’ and
Nahiya, City Councils, Beladiya Councils and Hayy Councils, as necessary to achieve
greater efficiency and economies of scale in coordinating the provision of public services,
and to facilitate unified and coordinated administration of cities. ”

“ Local councils may annut or amend any decision, ordinance or measure taken by councils subordinate to their own authority which infringes the Constitution or the laws.
32.— (1) In their work the local councils are in direct contact with the population; they promote the active participation, initiative and control of the workers in the local exercise of State authority.
(2) The local councils must report on their work to the electors at least twice a year. ”

“ If these powers are exercised in an enlightened spirit the problem of Local Self-Government will be, in a great measure, settled, but the difficulties in the way are so numerous and formidable that nothing short of the strenuous and zealous exertions of the intelligent and wealthy classes of the community, acting in concert for the public welfare, will render Local Government an immediate success. ”

“ In thus rapidly sketching out the various ways in which a local village authority might encourage the growth and improvement of the place, it has been endeavoured to indicate, in a suggestive manner, the way in which such an authority might be established. It is not for one moment proposed that an application should be made to the Legislature for a special enactment enabling such councils to act with legal force. ”

“ The system of local government as it operates at the present time is by no means free from anomalies, but it exhibits, none the less, an orderliness and a simplicity which were altogether lacking a generation ago. The variety of areas of administration has been lessened, the number of officials has been reduced and their relations have been simplified, the guiding hand of the central authorities in local affairs has been strengthened. Stated briefly, the situation is as follows: the entire kingdom is divided into counties and county boroughs ”

“ Through local governments of local origin, clothed with appropriate powers of subordinate legislation and administration, these adaptations of general and indiscriminating laws are made by persons familiar with the localities;—by persons, therefore, who have greater aptitudes for this particular function, than are commonly possessed by persons of higher general qualifications, whose knowledge of the localities is less intimate and minute. ”

“ It has been said that the discretion committed to the local authorities, however limited and guarded, must be necessarily large; that in respect to the imposition of the largest proportion of the burden imposed upon the citizen, they constitute the real legislature; and that for the prevention of the evils we are considering, the people must exercise the greatest care in the choice of citizens to fill the important local offices. ”