Candidate background checks should be charter-required
To the editor:
The mayor and council recently held a special meeting to discuss recommended amendments to our City Charter. The Charter Review Commission spent many months and hundreds of hours researching ways to make our City Charter more effective.
The Council spent some time discussing specific recommendations and spent no time discussing others. Others were sliced and diced and really bear no resemblance to what was submitted.
At this special meeting I spoke as a resident and not as a member of this commission. I strongly recommended that they add a provision to the City Charter that would state that any candidate for council should be subjected to a background check.
When they hire a city manager or a new department head or police officers etc. They all are subject to a background check. Why not candidates?
One has to remember is that the City Charter is just that, a City Charter and not the Council Charter. We the people are the city and we decide what is in the Charter, no one else!
In prior elections candidates have lied about all sorts of things and it only comes out after some have been elected and then the drama begins which holds the city up to ridicule and embarrassment. As things stand now nothing of what a candidate puts on the forms that they are mandated to fill out to run for office is ever verified! NOTHING!
We the people cannot depend on the media to give us unbiased information on potential candidates as they endorse candidates for office and only tout their virtues and say negative comments about the opponent.
We the people need an independent source of information that would be unbiased. The Police Department could do these background checks and then have them posted on the city website. The Police Department currently does all the background checks on potential employees for the city.
In essence we the people are hiring those candidates that we choose to represent us with our vote. We can avoid all the problems of the past wherein things have come to light after someone has been elected by doing a background check on candidates for public office here in Cape Coral PRIOR to an election.
Our City Attorney stated rather firmly “I would not put that in the City Charter”! I say that is exactly where it belongs and then only the voter has the right to change it! It was suggested that it be done by Ordinance. Ordinances can be changed at any time but only by those sitting on the dais!
Let’s put the power where it belongs and that is with the residents of Cape Coral. If you agree with me write to the mayor and council and demand that background checks should be included in the City Charter and that it be put on the ballot in November. Let the voters decide if background checks should be in the Charter.
The Mayor and Council can be contacted at:
Or call them at 239-574-0437.
Let your voices be heard on this issue.
Lynn Rosko
Cape Coral