“Here in the United States, such a move by a city council would lead to calls for a recall election to remove the council and replace them with office holders who would be expected to reverse the offending policies/laws/etc. We have this power at the state and local level because they are written into the constitutions of these political entities.”
Local elections are scheduled - there is no ability to kick out a council once elected by the electorate, you have to wait for the end of their term - however, councils operate in a similar way to our parliament so you may get individual representatives (councillors) kicked out of their roles internally by fellow councilors who can taste the political climate.
Most of the policy initatives though are actually run by non elected council officers - most of our local politicians are idiots (there is no money in local politics) so give a nod and a wink to paid officials ideas as they don’t have the wit to come up with their own. I always find our local government far more ‘soviet’ than the central government (though that may just be where I live).
You are exactly on the money, my friend. In my lifetime I have seen power and authority pass in larger and larger measures from elected and accountable representatives to ever more anonymous and distanced agencies and entities. As a cowboy friend of mine put it, "The 21st Century is fixing to be a real ornery booger."