“Professional jobs shouldn’t be filled at the ballot box”
I don’t know about that. I kind of like that we can elect the county sheriff and then replace him if we want. We might be better of electing police chiefs and city managers.
The trick is ensuring that we have qualified people to elect, no matter who wins the election.
The world has become too complicated to rely on the guy who happens to get the most votes to have the skills and expertise needed to run multi-million dollar public enterprises.
That’s why I’m in favor of city and county managers. Check out www.icma.org for what professional management has done to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of local government.
Accountability? As one 30+ year City Manager ssys “My job security is 5 votes on a Monday night”. Yes there could be severance pay, but most city managers do not have locked-in contracts, they’re just like any other management level employee in business who can be fired at will.
That’s true accountabilty. Hold your elected officials feet to the hire the best skilled professionals for the job. It’s much better to be able to fire a manager if necessary than to be stuck with the winner of a popularity contest for 4 years.
Elected officials should always hold the power to hire and fire. They just aren’t competent to run the day-to-day operations.