Strong Mayors and Nonsense

The City of Sacramento is one of the largest cities in the state with a council-manager form of government. In the past election the voters, by a substantial margin, rejected a feckless incumbent for a new face, Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star - but also a local celebrity who has contributed successfully to civic life in a series of projects including something called St. Hope Academy.

Johnson immediately came in and proposed to go to a strong mayor model - which makes the mayor a separate office which the powers of an executive. Instead of being one among many, the mayor proposes policy and has the ability to veto council actions. If it works at the state and federal level - it should also be a good idea at the local level.

But the Stationary Engineers, Local 39 (those are the people who maintain boilers and air conditioning) Local 39 has taken an oppose position to the Mayor's proposal. "Local" 39 is a bit of a misnomer. According to their website "With the introduction of new first time agreements, we have added over one hundred new private sector jobs and countless public sector jobs to the workforce, amounting to some eight hundred new Local 39 Members through-out our jurisdiction." (That should give you an idea of their interests also.) Local in this case seems to be a lot of Northern California. In the last several decades all unions have been more successful in organizing in the public sector than in the private sector. Although their General Secretary and Business Manager firmly hopes that the Obama administration will lead to significant growth in membership.

The document is laughable in its arguments. For example, it suggests that the Mayor, in his executive authority would "no longer have to attend council meetings" and would become somehow less "accountable." In an executive form of leadership, the Executive and the Legislative branches are separated for good reason. The position paper of the union also suggests that giving one person a veto power (which can be overridden) would a) diminish the power of individual council members. It also suggests that the proposal requires no "documented" experience for the position of mayor. (Although under the current system there is no documented experience for mayor either.)

Here is the real rub to the union - it claims that by allowing the Mayor, as Chief Executive of the City, to appoint all department heads, that could lead to croynism and "pay for play" politics. If all those arguments strike you as a bit bizarre - each could easily be countered- consider the real issue here. In a system with no locus of power, small groups with concentrated power have an inordinate level of power. As an individual taxpayer you may not care very much whether the operating engineers lobby to increase beyond reasonable limits the number of people employed in their profession on city jobs or pass an ordinance which requires slightly more expensive standards for construction. In both cases your individual interest in the issue is small - it might only cost you a few bucks a year and you have other things on your mind. But for the interest group those small increments mean a lot. In essence the system that Local 39 thrives in disburses costs and concentrates benefits for its members. A strong executive is the best option to counter that inordinate granting of power. If the mayor shows too much favoritism to a group, like Local 39, you can boot him out.

The strong mayor model depends on electing a strong mayor. If you get one like Johnson's feckless predecessor - no model will work. No model of governance is perfect but the strong mayor offers the best hope for the City of Sacramento to move forward, the nonsensical arguments of Local 39 notwithstanding.