A developer who most egregiously cut a swathe of trees through public and private land within Panama City's municipal limits and the Panama Canal watershed, without benefit of any of the necessary permits, recently got out of paying a large fine imposed by the city when the Supreme Court held that municipal governments don't have the power to protect their trees by imposing fines. A few months ago the court overturned Arraijan's fines and jail terms for people who invade public lands, also on the theory that cities lack the power to impose such penalties. In Colon we hardly know who's mayor from one day to the next, as the woman whom the voters elected and members of the city council attempted to issue municipal bonds, which is beyond a city's powers. In La Chorrera the elected mayor has been removed by the Electoral Tribunal, for the crime of denying employment to a former city worker and political activist who took time off of his hack job to run unsuccessfully for the legislature. During the Pérez Balladares administration, the national government's attempt to improve Panama's image for tourists and residents alike by limiting the proliferation of billboards along our roads was struck down by the high court, as an infringement upon local prerogatives.

All of these decisions have two things in common. The substance of the decisions were against the public interest, and the controversies arose in the first place because the constitutional powers of local governments are both insufficient for the purposes of good government and poorly defined. Even Panama City's power to collect the garbage comes by way of a relatively recent statutory grant, rather than by a sensible constitutional division of powers.

It would be easy, but wrong, to argue that since the president and legislature are hopeless cases, the transfer many of their powers to local governments would be a good idea. City halls can be as bad or worse as national governments, and after our current ongoing horrible experience, the voters may just decide to clean up the legislative and executive messes. It's never a good idea to base long-lasting public policies upon the personalities of people who will be out of office in a few years, or upon the headlines of the moment.

However, there are a lot of things that the national government does that can be better handled at the local level and should be devolved in a new division of labor between central and municipal governments. To properly perform expanded duties, as well as the many functions that they now perform, municipalities need better sources of their own revenue than billboard taxes. Local powers to tax, charge fees for services and borrow should be carefully considered and specifically set forth in Panama's constitution.

Now, when people are increasingly looking at constitutional reform as a way out of our national crisis, is a good time to start thinking about how we can improve the way that our local governments work. It's no sure cure for everything that's wrong with our cities, but in many areas decentralization makes a lot of sense.

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