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Minister of Media · 03-01-2022, 10:38 PM

The Southern Journal
The Official News Outlet of the South Pacific

The Local Council Needs Reform
By HumanSanity

In concept, gameside self-government and democracy is an ideal for a democratic region. If the government is to be as close and accountable to its constituents as possible, the idea of having a government of the gameside elected by its constituents instead of predominantly forum and Discord using legislative-types is a dream.

If only this dream could come true. In practice, the Local Council is consistently failing its mandates in the Charter to “represent the interests of all players in the region, moderate the Regional Message Board, encourage activity on the gameside, and administrate itself on issues unique to the in-game community” in favor of serving as a poorly structured “moderation staff” for a chaotic RMB, with energetic players who have no structure or purpose to build their activity on. A Local Council which began to take on these tasks, attempting to cultivate and structure activity on the gameside, or serving as a bridge for new members to join regional institutions and become involved in the community, would be an invaluable asset to the region.

The reality is that the Local Council does not fulfill these functions. Instead, the RMB becomes a spam playground for the most energetic players, with pages upon pages of “legal” but valueless content, creating an unwelcoming environment for more structured and substantive contributors, and serves to drive away new players and potential talent from the region. The problems with the Local Council aren’t isolated to just one bad term, but at this point are inherent to the largely unchanging structure the Local Council has chosen for itself.

The Local Council’s structure right now exhibits three core flaws.

First, it is designed as a legislature but given executive powers and mandates. If the Local Council were a body analogous to the Assembly, empowered solely to write and pass laws, then its structure would be fine as there is no hierarchy, leadership, or assignment of roles and tasks. However, the Local Council’s structure is simply three people who should “do things”, with no specific mandates, structure, or agenda-setting ability for governance. Three co-equal and non-portfolio’d members of the Local Council will never be able to adequately divide and conquer the tasks of on-site community-building and integration with which the Local Council is entrusted.

Second, the Local Council is unaccountable. A central tenet of a democratic system is that leaders can be held accountable for systematic failures, dereliction of duty, or bad decisions. The Local Council lacks this mechanism as its members can only be recalled by the Assembly, which is also not their constituency. If the Assembly were to recall a Local Councillor for anything other than a clear cut abuse of power, with substantial outcry from the gameside community, it would be viewed as an overreach of the Assembly’s authority and a violation of the principles of gameside federalism. Since Local Councillors are not subject to recall, they have no incentive to deliver on, or way to be held accountable for, failures to deliver on election promises. Further, unlike every other institution of government under the Sunshine Act, the Local Council’s internal deliberations and processes are not subject to public disclosure requirements at any point. The public will never know if LC inaction is due to rejecting an idea, pure incompetence, or something more nefarious.

Third, the RMB is a poor venue for government and governance discussions, especially in the state the Local Council has allowed it to collapse into. The RMB simply moves too quickly, contains too little long-post content, and doesn’t encourage focused discussion of Local Councillor campaigns. Any effort to hold the Local Council accountable, even just through sabre rattling, has to be done via Discord to be heard in the first place, otherwise it is simply lost to a huge wave of content.

All of this points to the need for a radical change to the Local Council’s current institutional structure – radical change that can be obtained without the nuclear option of abolishing the Local Council itself, and within the careful compromise of gameside federalism. The Local Council can reform to address these structural issues, but it requires a decided effort rather than gradual change.

Some would argue that “well, the Local Council’s failings are clearly what is desired by the gameside community”. First, the failings of the Local Council affect the region writ large and are not isolated to only the gameside. A disorganized and chaotic RMB with no culture beyond escalating spam is detrimental to regional recruiting, integration, and outreach efforts. A Local Council which fails to provide cultural activities and structure to RMB life can’t hide behind the excuse that “this is simply what the gameside wants” when it begins to interfere with the entire region’s ability to grow and prosper. Second, a gameside community genuinely engaged with the possibility of gameside government cannot exist when it has not been given space to flourish.

Moving forward, the Local Council in the upcoming term should consider efforts at radical reform and the central question of the upcoming Local Council election should be the possibility of reform. I’ll offer a list of ideas to start with. This isn’t the be all end all of the conversation, but a set of ideas to try to get the conversation going.

Appoint the Local Council

The Local Council is currently elected by the gameside, but this does not have to be the case. The Local Council could be appointed, either by the Delegate or by prior Local Councillors. In the status quo, the size and chaos of the RMB prevents any form of accountability for members of the Local Council, or for them to make a pitch to elect them on the basis of any policy platform or agenda. Appointment by the Delegate or past Local Councillors shrinks the size of the electorate to where agenda-setting is genuinely possible. To check against rogue appointments, corruption, and ensure public oversight, confirmation votes could be required for any appointments.

Deputy Local Councillors

The Local Council could easily select “deputies” to assist with their duties and carry out specific tasks, thus providing valuable mentorship and experience for potential future Local Councillors. This idea doesn’t require a legislative change, just a modicum of effort by an individual Local Councillor to take “promising RMBers” under their wing.

Local Councillors Could be Elected to Specific Portfolios

Instead of simply electing Local Councillors to the Local Council collectively, Local Council members could be required to run for a specific position and elected based on a platform to fulfill that role. The Local Council could be divided into three seats – as an example: a Local Councillor of Culture, a Local Councillor of Role Play, and a Local Council of Engagement – allowing LC to be held accountable for fulfilling specific responsibilities. This could also be combined with any of the previous systems – for example, two seats could be elected and one appointed.

There has to be a Local Council Recall Mechanism

As explained earlier, Local Councillors right now are functionally unaccountable for the duration of their term. The Local Council should implement a recall mechanism, where Local Councillors can be removed by an on-site poll, maybe requiring a petition with a certain number of signatures before the poll is started to prevent frivolous recalls. The Local Council could also allow the Delegate to remove Local Councillors for gross misconduct or dereliction of duty.

The Local Council can take any one or any combination of these ideas or not. The central fact is something must be done, or else things will continue on this unproductive trajectory. Sabres are often rattled about the role of the Local Council, but if anything is ever to happen, a place to start is to throw ideas out there. If the Local Council fails to heed calls for reform in the upcoming term, the Assembly should consider invoking its power under the Charter to abolish the Local Council itself. At some point the line has to be drawn against continual failures of the Local Council so that the region itself can flourish.