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Darren Wilson

Ferguson's challenge goes beyond race: Column

Sherrilyn Ifill
The Ferguson Commission, charged with studying the underlying social and economic conditions, is sworn in Tuesday.

By now it should be apparent to anyone paying attention that Ferguson, Mo., may be a metaphor for the long-ignored national problem of racial bias in policing. But Ferguson is also a place with its own very real crisis of leadership and governance — a crisis afflicting suburban communities across the U.S.

As the nation braces for the decision of the grand jury reviewing charges against the police officer who killed an unarmed black teenager, much of our attention is focused on how law enforcement and the political leadership of Ferguson will respond to community protests that may develop if the grand jury declines to indict officer Darren Wilson.

Regardless of the outcome, Ferguson residents will have to demand even broader accountability from their local government if real and lasting change is to be realized.

It remains astonishing even now — more than three months into a period of unprecedented unrest that resulted in the deployment of the National Guard and military-grade equipment to confront protesters — that most Americans still do not know the name of Ferguson's mayor or any other elected official.

John Shaw, the city manager, employs Ferguson's hapless police chief, Thomas Jackson. But neither Mayor James Knowles nor Shaw ever really surfaced during the unrest, and calls for the firing of the police chief have never been directed at Shaw.

Weak leadership

How did Ferguson get such poor city leadership, and how can that leadership be so unresponsive to its population, which is 67% African American? The answer, most have suggested, lies in the failure of African-American voter participation.

Turnout among African Americans in the last municipal election was 6%. Many have noted that although the city's electorate is majority black, the mayor, most of the City Council and the school board are white.

Without question, African Americans must fully participate in elections if they want their local government to respond. Community organizing efforts to register voters in the wake of Brown's death are intended to increase black turnout. A number of voters participated in a session convened by national civil rights groups about how to conduct recalls of elected officials. Other activists have begun preparing to run for office in the coming years.

While these efforts are important and encouraging, they are unlikely to produce the kind of transformative leadership that Ferguson needs.

Why not? For starters, the office of mayor is a part-time job that pays $350 per month. Elections for mayor and City Council members are held in March (primary) and April (general) in odd years — seeming to deliberately bypass those election years and times when voters would be most likely to turn out.

Restructuring needed

The reality is the current governing structure demands very little from its leaders. Weak elected leadership also means that Ferguson's mayor and City Council have little incentive to push for the kind of economic revitalization efforts that might have created real opportunities for the Michael Browns of Ferguson.

Instead, law enforcement and unelected officials play a powerful role in driving Ferguson's economic engine. Funds raised from traffic fines and court costs are the city's second largest source of revenue, according to a paper published by the ArchCity Defenders this year. The part-time municipal judges who impose those court costs and collect those fines are not elected but are appointed by the council, and most often work as prosecutors or defense counsel in neighboring municipalities.

In essence, low-income residents bear the cost of paying for a political leadership apparatus that provides no meaningful plan for the economic, social or educational progress of the community.

Simply electing a new set of leaders will not be enough. Those new leaders may have the will but will still lack the power to produce real change. Ferguson and the surrounding municipalities in St. Louis County need a government overhaul. The limitations of governance there reflect the challenges faced by middle- and low-income suburbs across the country, and the consequences of the suburbs' embrace of limited government.

Given their lack of leadership, Ferguson's mayor and City Council should expect to be turned out of office in future elections. Ferguson residents deserve a better and more responsive government. But they also deserve a governing structure that can produce effective, responsive and visionary leadership for this beleaguered community.

Sherrilyn Ifill is president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

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