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Friday, February 10, 2012
Charter Committee in favor of mayor appointing manager
by Kathleen Haley, published on September 4, 2009 at 7:18 PM
Storyline: Sacramento City Hall / Politics
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Most of the members of a city committee examining the “strong mayor” issue are in favor of revising the city’s charter to allow the mayor to appoint the city manager. However, three of the 11 members of the city’s Charter Committee voted against the idea Thursday.
The committee’s early vote in support of the mayor’s ability to appoint the city manager means that most of the committee members think the mayor should have more power in this area. Right now, the City Council appoints the city manager.
Committee member Tina Thomas was one of the six members who favored a change to allow the mayor to appoint the city manager. “I think that when an individual is elected city-wide — after presumably a campaign about a citywide agenda that needs to be implemented — then that person needs to have somebody there who can work with him or her to implement that policy agenda,” Thomas said.
“I think that you have checks and balances by having confirmation of the council,” she added.
The Charter Committee’s preliminary recommendation supports the mayor’s ability to appoint the city manager, but the City Council would need to confirm the mayor’s candidate with a majority vote. The mayor would not be allowed to participate in the confirmation vote.
Committee member Chester Newland voted against the recommendation. Usually, the city manager “needs to work thoughtfully and on a sustained basis with the mayor,” he said. “On the other hand, a focus on a greatly empowered mayor tends basically to narrow the civic leadership of the city.”
Committee members are starting to define their ideas on the powers of the mayor and City Council. These ideas will eventually take the form of recommendations to the Sacramento City Council. Their suggestions will consist of possible changes to the city’s charter, which is similar to a constitution.
While the recommendations will be presented to the City Council, Sacramento voters will ultimately decide whether to change the city's current "council-manager" system. Voters will need to approve any changes that may be recommended by the committee. Members of the committee were unanimously appointed by the City Council in February.
Meanwhile, the Sacramentans for Accountable Government group has created a ballot measure to provide new powers to Sacramento’s mayor. In June, the group delivered to City Hall tens of thousands of signatures from residents who want a "strong mayor" city government. Earlier this summer, the Sacramento County Registrar of Voters found that the group had submitted the required 32,433 signatures in order to put the proposal on the ballot. Voters will go to the polls in June 2010 for that proposal, which is backed by Mayor Kevin Johnson.
The committee’s vote supporting the ability of the mayor to appoint the city manager is preliminary. It’s not considered a final recommendation because only six of the 11 members voted in favor of it. In order to make a final recommendation to the City Council, the committee needs seven votes in favor.
Here’s the vote breakdown:
Bill Edgar: Yes
JoAnn Fuller: No
Cecily Hastings: Yes
Grantland Johnson: No
Alan LoFoso: Yes
Robert Murphy: Yes
Chester Newland: No
Chris Tapio: Abstained from voting
John Taylor: Absent
Tina Thomas: Yes
Jay Wishan: Yes
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Should Kevin Johnson’s ballot initiative succeed it will create a Chicago Boss-Mayor form of government for Sacramento that will not only reign over the people of the City, but will obliterate the checks and balances contained in the current Council-Manager form of government. As one professional commented: “Richard Daley would come back from the grave to become Mayor in Sacramento given he would have more power than he did as the infamous ‘boss mayor’ of Chicago!” But wait: in response to these concerns, the Charter Commission has devised yet another idea -- the Mayor-Manager form of government -- which may significantly dilute the role and purpose of the City Council. Only time and analysis will tell.
Before we throw out the preverbal baby with the bath water, ponder this: today’s Council-Manager form of government was created to combat the very system of payback/patronage, graft and corruption that plagued communities in the eastern United States at the turn of the 20th century. The ‘Chicago Boss-Mayor’ and potentially the ‘Mayor-Manager’ forms of government proposed by the Charter Commission do not adhere to the system of ‘checks and balances’ imbedded into the Council-Manager form of government.
Under the current Council-Manager form of government, public policy decisions and levels of basic service are provided on a level playing field – not based on patronage or who is on ‘top of the hill’ at any given moment. Why would we want to change a system of governance that has worked for decades? If the argument for the change is because ‘things are not getting done’ then, if my math is correct, it only takes six votes of the city council to fire/retire the city manager. We do not need a ‘vote of the people’ to do that now. So, the rationale for change confounds me.
Simply put, the Council-Manager form of government guarantees a shared and equal flow of information whereby the City Council can make informed public policy decisions. Under the Council-Manager form of government, you need not worry whether or not you gave money to the Mayor’s last campaign, to make sure your garbage is going to be picked up, your water service is fixed or your leaves will be picked-up. Both the ‘Chicago Boss Mayor’ and potentially the ‘Mayor-Manager’ form of government remove s administrative oversight and checks and balances bestowed upon the City Council and no longer assures parity. Kevin Johnson’s ‘Boss-Mayor’ model or potentially the Charter Commission’s ‘Mayor-Manager’ form of government will dismantle the level playing field that exists under the Council-Manager form and replaces it with a field of the Mayor’s ‘team du jour’ and policy subject to the winds of change.
As a final consideration, it is important to remember that any elected official, in many respects, is an ‘unknown’ -- in regards to his or her level of experience, knowledge and code of ethics. This leaves the quality and integrity of the management of the City strictly to chance and determined by the candidate’s ability to woo the majority of voters. If we “guess” wrong we either have to contest a costly recall or painfully await the opportunity to throw the incompetent Mayor out. That is not the case today. So if the management of the City is wanting, the City Council can and should act to remove the City Manager who is failing to implement the City Council’s directives. We should not have to recast the system of governance just to change the administrative leadership of the City.
The proposals to change the form of government relegates the City Council to a ‘debating society’, no longer maintaining the checks and balances of governance, or maintaining a level playing field for the citizens of Sacramento . Kevin Johnson’s “Chicago Boss Mayor” and the Charter Commissions “Mayor-Manager” will introduce a system prone to the abuses of patronage. I urge you to voice a resounding “NO” in June 2010 to the proposed ‘Boss-M
As important as who hires the city manager is who can fire him: in Hiltachk's proposal, the City Council could override the mayor's appointment for city manager, but could not remove the manager once they took the job: only the mayor would have firing authority. Currently, six votes of the Council and Kerridge would have to draft a new resume.
More than 66 percent of our nation's cities of our size have a strong mayor/council style of government and the trend is in that direction (not the other way around). Fresno, LA, SD, SF and most other cities of the same size in California do, without any of the allegations suggested above.
These other cities don't face as many of the above allegations because the Sacramento proposal is far, far more overreaching than any other city's proposals. It is above and beyond the level of power given to mayors in these other cities. And according to the latest analysis, legally flawed to the point where it may violate state law: initiatives can amend city charters, but they cannot totally rewrite them in significant ways, the way this one does. That's in addition to the several legal land mines identified in the report--I guess that's what happens when an initiative is crafted in secret, without public review, and then sprung forth on the public in a hail of developer dollars.