Richmond's City Council has a problem with making and keeping appointments.
A council committee struggled Tuesday with proposals to change the way it appoints members to the Slave Trail Commission, Capital Region Airport Commission and a new GRTC Transit System task force, while belatedly reappointing two members to the board of commissioners at Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
"If you're going to do it, do it right," said Councilman E. Martin Jewell, a non-committee member who opposed the proposals to change how appointments are made to some of the more than 70 boards and commissions overseen by the City Council.
Faced with strong public opposition, the Committee on Land Use, Housing and Transportation backed off a proposal to allow unlimited terms on the Slave Trail Commission, long headed by state Del. Delores L. McQuinn, D-Richmond, a former City Council member.
"We're talking about people having the unlimited ability to stay on the board however long they want to," said Rolandah Cleopattrah, head of the African burial ground community organizing committee, which wants new members on the city commission.
She was one of seven people, including the executive director of the Virginia State Conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, to denounce the proposal by Councilwoman Cynthia I. Newbille, a member of the commission who succeeded McQuinn on the council.
The committee continued the proposal to allow Newbille to amend it, and the commission to begin addressing more than a half-dozen languishing applications to fill vacancies and expiring appointments on the board.
On a 2-1 vote, the committee backed a proposal by Councilman Bruce W. Tyler to require that one of Richmond's four representatives on the airport commission be a member of the council.
The decision sets up a decision about which of the city's four current representatives will have to go, because terms have expired for three of them. The council currently has the authority to appoint one of its members to the commission but has declined to do so for years.
"I don't think it's necessary," said the fourth, Charles Macfarlane, whose term expires in 2015.
Another member, Robert Norfleet, cautioned, "An abundance of elected officials on an important commission can be a problem."
But the commission already includes three supervisors from Chesterfield County, two from Henrico County, and two from Hanover County. "The cat's already out of the bag," Tyler said. "It's time to level the playing field."
The committee killed another proposal by Tyler to allow city employees and engineering firms with city contracts to serve on the GRTC Task Force, which will examine ways to transform the transit system.
Tyler argued that the task force needs civil engineering and transportation experts, but Councilman Charles R. Samuels said they should act as informal advisers rather voting members.
"Even though it's really not putting the fox in charge of the henhouse, it certainly gives that impression," Samuels said.
Finally, at the end of a three-hour meeting, the committee unanimously recommended the reappointment of Elliott M. Harrigan and Orlando C. Artze to the RRHA board.
Harrigan's second term had expired in November, and Artze's first in June.
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