Proposal : Covenant Initiatives

[Claude Desmoulins]

Covenant Initiative Proposal

Citizens shall be permitted to modify sim and zone covenants by means of petition and initiative

Limitations

No initiative shall alter covenant provisions which apply to the entire CDS
No initiative shall alter the overall theme for a sim

Procedure

Citizens desiring a covenent change shall submit a petition to the RA and SC. This petition shall be affirmed individually by at least 15% of the landowners in the affected sim. If the SC determines that the petition does not contraven one of the above limitations, it shall schedule an election of all landowners in the sim to be held within 30 days of the initiative submission date. Each landowner shall receive one vote. The mechanism of the election shall be determined by the SC. The covenant change shall be enacted if it is affirmed by a simple majority of voting landowners with a simple majority of all sim landowners casting ballots in the election.

[Salzie Sachertorte]

Could you please provide background information as to why you believe this "inititiative" is required?

Have you given the Chancellor, under whose control the covenenant and its enforcement lies, a chance to speak on the issue?

Have you sought the input of the citizens on this?

I think the RA should institute a "brewing" period for legislation of more than two days, in order to give the issues full public exposure and debate before being discussed and voted upon by the RA, so that everyone has the opportunity to be heard. Especially during the summer, when most folks are away from their computers, enjoying RL.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

I confess, this seems to be an entirely pointless law.

The RA has the power to alter covenants. The Chancellor has the power to relax the covenants on certain points. If the RA (or the populace at large, as with this proposal) wish to alter the covenants, it seems silly to have a law prohibiting it that will be repealed at first opportunity.

[Nikki]

To me it seems like a good idea to allow the citizens a way to petition the community (not only the government) if they would like to have an exception to the covenants. Exactly the best way to do this is something that can be worked out, but this is a very good start.

Perhaps such an ability could come into effect if a citizen has taken a request to the RA and they did not grant the exception.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

[quote="Nikki":3bqhf1v6]To me it seems like a good idea to allow the citizens a way to petition the community (not only the government) if they would like to have an exception to the covenants. Exactly the best way to do this is something that can be worked out, but this is a very good start.

Perhaps such an ability could come into effect if a citizen has taken a request to the RA and they did not grant the exception.[/quote:3bqhf1v6]

Thing is, it's not the RA that grants exceptions; it's the Chancellor.

[Claude Desmoulins]

Someone, I believe Salzie, asked "why". One of the things I appreciated about the not yet CDS when I arrived was its responsiveness. Everyone knew everyone else and citizens were very connected to governance, even if they didn't hold office.

I worry that as we grow, that connectedness will be lost, and I think we need to keep government close to the citizens it serves.

As to a mandated consultation period on legislation, perhaps you haven't been watching the RA this term ,but I'd hardly say rushing into things has been a problem for us.

[Bromo Ivory]

The Covenants, being a Chancellor based function, probably doens't require a law, per se.

What is the motivation regarding this?

[Nikki]

Thank you for the correction, Aliasi. I will restate my view:

Perhaps an ability to have an exception to the covenant could come into effect if a citizen has taken a request to the Chancellor and is not granted the exception. That way if a citizen were unhappy with the Chancellor's decision, the question could be taken to the greater community.

This said, I also believe it would be best for such a vote to take place on the sim involved rather than throughout the entire CDS. As I have said elsewhere before, I believe those effected by such a decision should be involved in making it, and those outside should not be involved. For example, if there is a Star Wars-themed sim in the future I do not think its agreement should be necessary for covenant alterations in Colonia Nova.

[Claude Desmoulins]

This was very much the way I was thinking. When we were but one sim, it made sense for the RA to decide these things. Once we added a second sim, there arose the philosophical question of why should NFS only landholders need to concern themselves with the details of the CN covenant. As we continue to grow there will be the pragmatic issue of consuming the RA's time with covenant changes that affect only a sim or a zone of a sim.

[Bromo Ivory]

[quote="Claude Desmoulins":cuw5b0u0]This was very much the way I was thinking. When we were but one sim, it made sense for the RA to decide these things. Once we added a second sim, there arose the philosophical question of why should NFS only landholders need to concern themselves with the details of the CN covenant. As we continue to grow there will be the pragmatic issue of consuming the RA's time with covenant changes that affect only a sim or a zone of a sim.[/quote:cuw5b0u0]

The main question I would pose is this: Is this a current problem we are solving - meaning has anyone actually been denied a reasonable request? Has Ali abused her power in any way? Are the needs of CN or NFS being ignored in favor of the other?

Plus one could argue that I may have no interest in the portion of NFS outside of the city walls and they have none of my interests at heart - federalize/balkanize at your own risk!)

I really think tinkering with powers of the government has to come from real demonstrated need - and I suspect this might not be - that I could tell anyway.

Meaning - are we suspicious that the Executive will become too remote and/or dictatorial - or have we need evidence of this already (and if so when? where? by whom?)

Plus if this were a real bad issue, we should talk about increasingly federalizing the CDS rather than weakening the executive - or splitting up the RA in some manner.

At 3 linked SIMs I suspect there will be greater unity rather than the current arrangement.

[Nikki]

There is not a dispute currently that I know of, but I do know in the past some citizens have felt that the RA and Chancellor had too much power to make decisions simply on their own.

So far I have not had enough experience with the CDS government to know how I feel about that.

In my view Chancellor Stonebender is a reasonable leader. For this very reason now can be a good time for us to discuss governmental procedures, as we do not have to fight about such a discussion but can simply decide together which procedures would be best. So far I have seen no reason why Ms. Stonebender would need to be opposed to this concept. If she is strongly against it then that is what would give me the most suspicion - why would she not want what the citizens want? Also, if she found difficulty in making a decision about a covenant exception she could simply refer the question to a vote of the citizens.

I see no danger in federalization of the CDS. That would be a natural development of its growth, and a way for each culture within the CDS to respect the decision-making ability of the other cultures within it. Yes, it would be possible even to separate decision-making in Neufreistadt from the land outside its walls (which would be the case in RL), but my view is that we not go so far at this time. Where I feel it would be best to draw governmental district boundaries would be by sim. There are several reasons for this, which have been discussed previously in other threads, for example here: http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... c&start=15

It was not my intention here to begin another debate about federalization, but I did believe it was important to consider exactly which citizens would be voting on whether an exception to the covenants would be allowed.

[Aliasi Stonebender]

[quote="Nikki":35haewdb]
In my view Chancellor Stonebender is a reasonable leader. For this very reason now can be a good time for us to discuss governmental procedures, as we do not have to fight about such a discussion but can simply decide together which procedures would be best. So far I have seen no reason why Ms. Stonebender would need to be opposed to this concept. If she is strongly against it then that is what would give me the most suspicion - why would she not want what the citizens want? Also, if she found difficulty in making a decision about a covenant exception she could simply refer the question to a vote of the citizens.
[/quote:35haewdb]

Oh, on the contrary, I'm not at all opposed. But at the same time, I want to make sure that you have a good understanding of how it works [i:35haewdb]currently[/i:35haewdb].

I've never refused a request, although I have had to come down with small amounts of righteous wrath on people who never bothered to request. Of course, the next person to fill the seat might not be as reasonable as me! (And there [i:35haewdb]will[/i:35haewdb] be a next person - two terms is more than enough for me, thankee.)

That said, I'm not even sure why the limitations are there. I don't think anyone would change the theme lightly, but why [i:35haewdb]shouldn't[/i:35haewdb] it be an option?