Jason Grant, the director of advocacy for the International City/County Management Association, and Chuck Strome, executive director of the New York State City/County Management Association and the former longtime city manager of New Rochelle, said the Hudson proposal would give the manager “political powers,” whereas the position should be tasked solely with carrying out the policy of elected officials.
As the article points out, "Under the proposal, nearly all of the mayor's power would be given to a city manager." Considered most problematic is giving the city manager veto power over the Council. Jason Grant is quoted in the article as saying, "Once you have veto power, you are weighing in directly on what the policy decision of the elected body is. . . . If the council adopts a policy position, then that manager's responsibility, ethically, is to fully and faithfully carry out or achieve those goals, and if they can't then they should resign."
COPYRIGHT 2025 CAROLE OSTERINK
Said experts incorrectly claim that the City Manager will have veto powers over legislation passed by the council. That's not so. They either didn't read the charter, or didn't understand it.
ReplyDeleteWhat is clear however is that Roger hasn't fact-checked his sources.
Actually, the proposed charter changes do give the city manager veto power over approval of audits and reductions to the city budget. The city manager would not have veto power over legislation--i.e., resolutions, laws, and ordinances.
DeleteCorrect, there are these two vetos that you mentioned. The article however contains this hallucination:
Delete"The council would write and vote on legislation and resolutions. The city manager would have veto power, though a supermajority of council members could override it."
There are zero provisions in the charter that allow the CM to veto legislation and resolutions passed by the council. Roger is quite simply wrong and did not fact-check his experts.
Veto power over the budget from a city employee is an extraordinary power to give someone we're hiring to run things for us.
DeleteIt's absolutely backwards to a Democratic form of government.
And it's entirely extraordinary and non-existent in any other charter I've found from our peer cities with City Managers.
Nathan Woodhull
29 Union Street
See Article XVI, Section C16-5. It is not veto power over the budget in its entirety; rather it is veto power over reductions to the proposed budget made by the Council. (According to the charter, the Council can only make reductions to the budget presented to them by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment.) A supermajority of the Council can override the veto.
DeleteThat means that, under the new system, 3 of the 5 alders can make a reduction to the budget, which the city manager can reject (makes sense as the CM has administrative authority) but then 4 of the 5 alders can override that veto?
DeleteThis doesn’t seem super weird to me. It gives the CM enough space not to be micromanaged, but Council retains control.
Yeah, I thought this had been asked about and discussed at the last public forum. It was a concern of mine as well; I don’t think anyone wants a civil servant to have legislative veto power over the council.
ReplyDeleteUsually expect better from Roger. Did he or any of the “experts” actually read it? Or were they given bullet points from those who have personal interests in the status quo? Their main criticism about this proposal focused on this as their main concern. If so, this requires more than a minor correction but a retraction. Nobody reads the articles anyway because of paywalls, they just share the headlines on social media.
On a side note, it’s sad to see the decline of local investigative journalism. There’s a wealth to some juicy stories out there that are easy to back up with a few hours of researching easily accessible sources. It seems like all reporters want to do is just dictate meetings or get spoon fed quotes without basic factchecking. It’s likely the editors telling them to keep it simple and not to make waves, especially since the only thing really driving traffic is parents following local high school sports.
Hi Jack -
ReplyDeleteDid you say investigative work... say more:
👉 tips@hudsoncommonsense.com
And totally agree with you... if I were a young political or public interest reporter trying to make it happen... man, this is like being the crime beat reporter in 1990s New York.
I'm pro charter reform of some kind. Our current charter is archaic, and many aspects of it like the Commissioner system are not working well to govern our city. A city manager is a good idea.
ReplyDeleteYet, charter reform needs to be done right.
The charter reform proposal in front of us is sloppily drafted and haphazard. It does not follow the established best practices for the city manager form of government. The powers that it gives the city manager are bizarre. It's drafted out of malice towards particular current office-holders (the mayor) and friendship with others (the treasurer) rather than well thought-out principles or a coherent approach to governance.
We'll be stuck with the charter for a long time. Let's do it right.
Hudson deserves better.
It has very little to do with the current mayor. The timeline doesn't support this assertion: This new charter, if passed, would go into effect in January 2028. Kamal already publicly stated that this year's mayoral election is in all likelihood his last as he will move on to greener pastures.
DeleteIt's ironic that many people are making this accusation yet it would be Kamal, assuming he wins in November, to oversee the transition to the new charter.
Mr. Woodhull, there is no "best practice" as to any form of municipal government in NYS. Our constitution and statutes provide maximum flexibility for each county, city, town and village to design and implement whatever form, in any hybridization, it deems proper provided that the determination is made by the voters themselves on the basis of the US Constitutional maxim of one person, one vote. I would strongly suggest that you read the petition as it contains all the Articles within the current charter that would be amended by the proposal. Your assertion above, that the amendments would give the manager veto power over the budget is factually incorrect. Indeed, what the language about "veto" and "budget" is about, is keeping the council from vitiating the BEA and thereby disenfranchising the treasurer and manager, both of whom sit on the BEA with the council president. Only the council itself can veto the budget and the manager's "veto" is of audits which are really about bills to be paid. It also goes to requiring council supermajority votes to reduce a previously-passed budget line item. Without the manager's oversight in this manner, there would be no oversight of such actions, no checks or balances.
DeleteIn a narrow, legal sense it’s true that there is no single best practice for city government, or for a council manager system.
DeleteBut it misses the point.
Good governance isn't just about what's legally allowed.
It's about following proven methods that work for citizens.
The fact is, that there are two significant professional organizations, with over 100 years experience in good governance.
The members of one - International City Manager’s Association - are actively criticizing the groups proposal. And the oldest - The National Civic League- does not even warrant a mention in their materials.
The International City Manager’s Association was established in 1914 when eight of the 31 existing U.S. city managers met in Springfield, Ohio. In 1924, the organization changed its name to the International City Managers' Association and adopted its Code of Ethics.
The National Civic League was founded in 1894 by a group of about 100 community leaders, including Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Frederick Law Olmsted. They felt local civic leaders needed inspiration and new models for governing and managing the nation’s cities.
The National Civic League publish the Model City Charter, the gold standard of government structure for over 130 years. The 9th Edition of the Model City Charter was released in December 2021 was the first full revision of the document since 2000.
Importantly, for the first time in its 125-year history, the trusted Model City Charter dedicates an entire article to making civic engagement a central part of good governance.
The DIY folks of the Charter Change group were likely not even aware of this important update, making the revisions outdated before they even start.
I interviewed Nick Vlahos and Derek Okubo of the National Civic League’s Center for Democracy Innovation about their history, about charter reform, and the rise of citizens’ assemblies. You can listen here:
https://thatbusinessofmeaning.substack.com/p/nick-vlahos-and-derek-okubo-on-reform
You can read about Article VII of the 9th Edition here:
https://www.nationalcivicleague.org/model-city-charter-9th-edition-article-vii-the-role-of-public-engagement-in-local-governance/
If we wouldn’t drive across a bridge built by someone who ignored engineering standards, why would we accept a system of government that ignored governance standards?
(It's worth noting that I shared much of this in emails to Carole, for her to post, as contributions to an open public conversation on the topic of charter change, and they never found themselves in a post. It's her platform, I get it. But thought it worth noting.)
Dallas has had a City Manager system for over 50 years and Dallas has been cited as one of the best run cities in the country.
ReplyDeleteFirst - just want to point out that Mayoral Candidate Peter Spear:
ReplyDeleteA) writes in his own words publicly
B) his operating principle is to unify and find common ground like Mr Rogers, appeal to noble virtues
C) is sincerely engaged in the study of cities and public spaces, and hyper local Hudson issues.
Imagine if Peter ran for Mayor 6 years ago... I bet you there'd be so much more housing, less rancor, lower taxes, and Kamal would have slowly drifted to Albany like Quintin Cross for a paying career politician gig.
Second - on this larger conversation... I love a good nuance... and many of us have worked with national governments, provinces, and larger cities on these issues... but it can also be very simple:
Whatever we are doing now, everyone agrees, is not working.
Let's try something else.
p.s. Tom and Kamal (Tomal) we are still waiting for your defense of the status quo and why Hudson's current charter works. That would be more noble than trotting out your City Hall dependents to write critiques.