Councilors Accused of Plotting Political Machine
Proposed charter amendments spark fears of a power grab by council leaders aiming to consolidate control over city jobs and bypass civil service protections.
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Is the present scheme in the city council a game to boost President E. A. Lynn into the mayor's chair and give Larry Turnbull and some other politicians in the council a machine to back them in their campaigns for office? Some of the more independent councilmen have been looking over the amendments fixed up to kill off civil service and when the thing comes up this week for final action there may be a break in the ranks of the fellows who have stood by the deal heretofore. President E. A. Lynn has the mayoralty bee in his hat, according to authentic report, and Turnbull wants to be county commissioner. A political machine would come handy to both. Both are boosters for the scheme to knock out the civil service by the proposed amendments. This amendment appears to make the president of the council the whole thing. It gives him power to appoint a committee on officials, and a two-thirds vote of this committee can bounce any man in the city service, in the fire department, engineering department, light department, or water department.
“It is the finest thing they ever saw for building a political machine to control local politics for the benefit of the favored few.”
Concerns over 'political machines' and the integrity of city hiring practices are enduring themes in local government, echoing contemporary debates about reform and the power of administrative appointees.
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