1. Strip the mayor of a council vote, except as a tiebreaker. All administrative duties and bureau oversight would be handed to a newly created position of city administrator, who would be hired by the mayor and confirmed by a majority of council members.
[City Manager form of municipal government is the most common in the nation, and theoretically puts a professional in charge of daily operations, as well as removing direct political control over minutia.]
2. The number of council members would increase from five to 12, with three members elected from each of four districts. (Currently, all five commissioners are elected citywide.)
[this too can be a good idea, since having ALL commissioners elected at large guarantees total control by whatever power interest is predominate]
3. And those commissioners would be elected using a relatively novel system called “ranked-choice voting.”
[i’m not as familiar with the pros and cons of this one]
[i’m not as familiar with the pros and cons of this one]
NYC has had it for awhile. You can see the results.
The deal killer sections of this city government arrangement that I would oppose are:
1. Ranked choice voting. 1 voter, 1 vote. KISS (keep it simple stupid).
2. Multiple council members per district. Is this the full employment for politicians city charter?
The city manager type city government is quite common and quite reasonable. No problem at all for me to approve. There’s an employment contract involved. While the the city manager is an at will employee, firing him for reasons outside the contract terms typically requires a severance payment or there will be a lawsuit for violating the contract. Merit based employment is enhanced and political yes persons, feather bedding of useless patronage persons decreases.