A friend and former colleague shared a story out of Sacramento, Calif., that he thought might pique my interest.
He’s right. It did.
The story concerns a ballot referendum that calls for a strong mayor form of government in California’s capital city.
It asks voters if they want the mayor to have appointment powers and to wield serious power over city government, which now runs on a council/city manager system.
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/city-beat/article3189903.html
My hometown of Portland, Ore., is run that way, with the mayor having the power to appoint city commissioners to oversee various city departments. Portland has no city manager; the mayor and the council do all the heavy lifting.
However, in my current hometown of Amarillo, we’ve got something quite different.
We have a council/manager government. What’s more, the council is a volunteer outfit, with five members — including the mayor — serving the city essentially for free. They get $10 every time they meet, which is weekly. The manager does all the grunt work. The only hire the council makes is, that’s right, the city manager, who then hires all the department heads.
I don’t know what would work for Sacramento. That’s the voters’ call.
Amarillo? It’s not in the cards.
***
Having said that, though, I have been entertaining second thoughts about whether the city should retain its at-large system of electing all council members.
Amarillo’s population is closing in on 200,000 residents; heck, it might even be there by now. With that population growth comes an increasingly diverse population. There’s a growing ethnic diversity, with residents of various ethnicities and races seeking City Hall’s attention on all manner of issues.
The argument here has been that each of the city council members represents the entire city. If someone has a concern, he or she can call any one of the five council members. But do they listen as intently to someone of, say, a different ethnic or racial background than they do one of their own? They all say they do, but not everyone believes what they hear.
The all-for-one approach, furthermore, reduces the mayor’s actual power. The city mayor’s main job, therefore, is just to preside over those weekly council meetings. Beyond that, the mayor has as much stroke as the other four council members.
One day — maybe soon — the winds of change will arrive at City Hall. It’s going to spark an interesting fight over whether to upset the norm that makes a lot of folks comfortable.
Continued growth, which the city fathers and mothers say they want, is going to change it.
Guaranteed.