Monday, February 10, 2020

Monday Night at City Hall: Part I

Someone once speculated that Register-Star reporters wrote several articles about the same Common Council meeting because they were paid by the article and wanted to make the most of every meeting they attended. Such is not the case for Gossips, obviously, but I do appreciate that tackling one issue at a time is more effective and less daunting than trying to report sequentially everything that transpired during more than two hours at City Hall. And so I begin, reporting first what happened last.

It will be remembered that back in October 2019 Mayor Rick Rector proposed a local law that would increase the terms of the mayor, Common Council president, and treasurer from two years to four years. That proposal had to pass through the Legal Committee before was considered by the full Council, and in committee, at the insistence of Alderman Tiffany Garriga (Second Ward), the proposed law was amended to increase the terms of the aldermen and supervisors as well. In December 2019, the proposed law was defeated in the Common Council by a vote of 6 to 5. Several of the aldermen who voted against the proposed law stated that they did so because they thought increasing the term of office was appropriate for the mayor and city treasurer but not for the aldermen.

Tonight, a new local law was introduced that would increase the term of office for the mayor, and only the mayor, from two years to four years. The proposed law came from the mayor's office and did not pass through the Legal Committee. In support of proposed law, Mayor Kamal Johnson, now in office for all of forty-one days, argued that the office of mayor "needs some continuity and leadership."

Predictably, Alderman Tiffany Garriga (Second Ward) argued that the terms of the aldermen should also be increased. As they did before, Ronald Kopnicki and Matt McGhee objected to increasing anyone's terms, maintaining that the more elections there were the better. John Kane suggested that the City "should look at having a city manager instead of a mayor." He went on to observe that it was "ironic that someone who wanted to replace the last mayor after two years now wants his term extended." 

Kane's suggestion reminded me of a little study I did back in 2007, when I was an alderman. Looking at the governmental structure of the municipalities that had, up until that point, won the National Trust's Great American Main Street Award, assuming that these were places Hudson would like to emulate, I discovered that the majority of these cities had city managers to provide the continuity and expertise needed, and the mayors, if they existed at all, served a more ceremonial function.
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6 comments:

  1. Salas has used this system for decades and it very effective. You have a professional administrator as well as a ceremonial official

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  2. Pros and cons, I suppose the idea is the mayor can work on the city business without stopping to campaign every two years. On the other hand, there is always the possibility that you can get a mayor who likes the pay and the title, but not the work, or someone who starts to do things that people don't like and then you are stuck with them. Either way it is unsettling to see this proposed by a new mayor, coming from his office, when he has just started his term and hasn't done anything yet. I could see a year from now, with things going well and everyone pleased, but it at this point seems like putting the cart before the horse.

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  3. A City Manager at what cost? Considering the effort required to overturn Hudson's weighted voting, the following description of the position, from GovtJobs.com, is disheartening when taken in context:

    "[T]he minimum education for a City Manager would be an under-graduation in public administration or public policy or political science as the degree includes courses such as financial management, economic development, strategic planning, fundraising, organizational communication, project management, labor relations, public safety, city planning, policy formation and human resources. However, most cities hire candidates with at least a master’s degree program in the public or business administration or a related field.
    "Any individual to attain a City Manager position should possess an average tenure of seven to eight years of progressively responsible experience as a City Administrator, Deputy City Administrator, Assistant City Manager, County Manager, Town Manager, Director of Community Development and Executive Director of the Redevelopment Agency or Department Head in a local public agency or municipal government in an administrative and managerial capacity involving the development and administration of organization-wide policies and procedures and the supervision of management level employees. …
    "The average salary of entry level city managers with five years of experience in any municipal government would be $65,000 (salary range from $60,000 to $70,000). Likewise, the median pay of mid level city managers with at least seven to eight years of experience in city government would be around $85,000 (salary range from $80,000 to $90,000), while managers with 10 to 15 years of experience earned an average salary of $110,000 (salary range between $100,000 and $250,000). In short, the annual salary of City Managers is negotiable and depends upon the experience and education."

    https://www.govtjobs.com/how-to-become-a-city-manager/

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  4. Dont forget the city can provide housing. That fine house in the cemetery that the late Public Works superior who had an engineering degree lived in.

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  5. A city manager has experience and training to deal with urban planning, land-use and development issues, civil service and municipal department management, grant-writing and execution, project management, economic growth, budgets, staffing, and the myriad other functions that it takes to run a city.

    The mayor wins a popularity contest.

    A city manager would answer to the Common Council, which balances out political expediency and with long-term planning.

    The mayor answers to a fickle electorate with an often less-than-substantive understanding of the complexities of local issues.

    A city manager has the professional background to hit the ground running with the business of managing the city. In an eight year posting, they might spend six months, or about 6% of their time in the position, ramping up to a reasonable degree of proficiency.

    The position of the mayor requires someone without a background in the above-mentioned areas about a year to build proficiency (currently 50% of their 2-yr term, 25% of a 4-yr term), which at any rate will probably be lower than that of someone with the educational and professional training of a city manager.

    The city manager can come from anywhere. The mayor has to be selected from among the 6,000 residents of Hudson, which is redundant if the managing Council members can set direction for the city manager.

    Perhaps we as a community will decide that the best value is extending the term of the mayor; the idea is not without merit. Before doing so, especially if we are tying ourselves to being stuck in the next mayoral term for four years, we should explore what is possibly a much better option for our city.

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