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Under our new form of government, all the mayor does (besides act as Portland’s cheerleader-in-chief) is hire a city manager. The city manager is the one who actually DOES STUFF that might bring change to the city. And that person is not elected? This position seems like a scapegoat—if they don’t make Portland perfect, the mayor can just fire them and hire someone new. Am I wrong? —I Voted for People Who Could Be Elected
I understand why a lover of democracy like yourself might be uncomfortable with a system that grants supreme executive authority to an unelected official, Voted. That said—as you may be noticing right about now—our system of choosing chief executives by election hasn’t turned out to be exactly foolproof either.
In any case, the executive authority exercised by a city manager isn’t really all that supreme: For all their sway over operations and administrative procedure, city managers don’t make policy.
The council-manager model was developed in the 1910s in response to the machine politics of the previous few decades, with “strong mayors” whose autocratic rule and “l’etat, c’est moi” attitude often came with a generous side helping of corruption, cronyism and mismanagement.
To avoid this, the creators of the new system decided to separate executive authority—the power to “do stuff”—from legislative authority, the power to decide what to do. Legislative authority is vested in the council, which sets civic priorities as representatives of the people. City managers don’t represent anybody—they exercise their narrow executive authority solely as agents of the council.
It’s true city managers are easy to fire—but that’s not a bug, it’s a feature! If you don’t like the mayor (use your imagination), your only options are to wait for the next election or mount a cumbersome recall. A city manager, though, serves at the council’s pleasure.
Finally, the fact they’re unelected is actually the best part. Let’s face it, we suck at picking leaders. The whole idea of a city manager is more or less a tacit acknowledgement that we’re too stupid to choose competent, effective administrators—we’ll trample a dozen budgeting-and-operations experts to get to one car salesman with good hair. The council-manager system takes this crucial hiring decision away from us, and good riddance. I’ve said it before: Democracy is too important a business to be left in the hands of the people.
Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.