Adam Beam, Twittering on Columbia budget, reports, “Mayor Bob Coble: We will not hire a city manager in next year’s budget.”
Here’s an idea: Don’t ever hire one. Let Charles Austin be the last. Use this opportunity to switch NOW to a strong-mayor form of government. Go from things being run by an unelected official with seven bosses to having one, ELECTED official running the city, and accountable to all of its voters.
There’ll never be a better time than now.
Adam also reports, “No picnic for Columbia employees next year to save taxpayers $10k.”
I say, let ’em have their picnic. But give ’em a boss who answers directly to the voters.
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A question: Why the push to change the method of Columbia by never a mention of amending the Sate Constitution to allow for a single elected CEO for county governments? Also for eliminating all elected county offices other than governing body and CEO. Do you see a diference between cities and counties that would prevent this?
No. In fact, I’ve advocated for such for years. Particularly the elimination of some of those absurdly elected offices. We brought that up at every opportunity at The State, such as in endorsement editorials:
http://www.thestate.com/endorsements/story/564456.html
The turmoil in Columbia city government just provides a fresh opportunity to make the argument for restructuring there.
While the idea a a single accountable executive with actual executive power (unlike our current state government structure) has theoretical appeal, years of empowered executive control by Lester Bates, John Campbell, Patton Adams or Bob Coble makes the blood freeze. The only Mayor in my lifetime that I would would have wanted to see with full executive powers was Kirk Finlay.
I can’t think of a single that has risen to higher office since the first Burnet Maybank who was Mayor of Charleston 70 odd years ago. Even Joe Riley, arguably one of the Nation’s most successful mayors (while I certainly differ with his politics) was able to move to statewide office. So, what motivation is there for a dynamic leader or a succession of dynamic leaders to want to serve as this City’s chief executive?
I also fail to see that a “strong” mayor would have avoided the current muddle. If Bob Coble had unfettered executive power I don’t know that his “don’t rock the boat”/ “consensus building” personality would have allowed him to dig aggressively into what was occurring around him and yet the people have reelected him with only token opposition again and again.
I simply do not understand what this change would fix.
A fulltime Mayor may be a good idea. Most real cities have one.
Much as I hate to say anything critical of Joe Riley, he could have done it if he’d tried harder earlier.
It’s to Joe’s great credit that he was more interested in doing the job he was elected to than in running a campaign for another office. But the fact is that while he was busy running Charleston, and doing it well (in the opinion of the voters who keep re-electing him with 75 percent of the vote in that increasingly GOP city), Nick Theodore was going all-out doing what he had done for the past 8 years — running for the Democratic nomination for governor.
Joe finally woke up after coming in way behind Nick in the original vote, and in the two weeks before the runoff finally ran the campaign he SHOULD have been running in the months before. And he made up so much ground that he only lost by less than one vote per precinct.
An earlier start, and he would have been governor from 95-03. And South Carolina would be better off for it.
Well he didn’t do what he needed to do and history is filled with people who could have achieved so much more if they had only done this or that. I’ve always felt his commitment to becoming Governor was tepid at best. Losing to Nick Theodore, whose leading qualifications were a friendly manner and a huge storehouse of jokes, was no mean feat particularly since Theodore managed to lose to David Beasley, no one’s vision of a strong candidate.
I actually think Riley is happier being Mayor for Life and I am much happier as I find the level of government involvement that he favors to be repellent.
Do you have any idea how many South Carolina municipalities use the “Charleston” system as opposed to the “Columbia” system?
You know, I used to know and I’m drawing a blank. Long day, I guess. Anyone?
Brad, I hate to go off topic (but I usually do, anyway) but are you going to do any post on Alexia Kelly, the new Obama appointment to the Faith-Based Partnerships at the Dept. of HHS? Since she’s Catholic, I thought the story, and the furor on both sides, would be worth a comment or two.
After Dick Riley and Carroll Campbell, we have had the worst run of governors ever in this state. Maybe someone is on the horizon who can do what these two did and transcend some of the inane political games and actually govern with class and common sense. One Democrat and one Republican, each serving this state very well.
Answered my own question: Of the ten largest cities by population, only North Charleston and Charleston have the “mayor-council” form of government.
About the quality of recent Governors I have a chicken and egg question: Jim Hodges was a HIGHLY respected member of the State Senate. Was he led down the wrong path by his sleazy Chief of Staff (and current guest of the State of North Carolina) Kevin Geddings or did he choose Geddings because his eye was already on that path? Does anyone know who he represents as a lobbyist?
House. Jim was in the House.
I blame it all on Geddings. Yes, jim bears responsibility, but he was following Kevin’s advice.
Don’t know about his clients. Web site might say (I’m on Blackberry at the moment).
I don’t think the problem in Columbia was the form of government, but the people in government. The position of city manager wasn’t the problem, hiring a police chief to be the city manager was.
Much speculation about his clients but about the only one of note would be Hillenbrand Partners from Chicago. He was originally a part of Kennedy Covington Lobdell & Hickman with offices in Columbia, Raleigh, Charlotte(?). Now, his firm has merged with McGuireWoods, located in Virginia. If you check, the list of clients is long and varied.
There was some question about Hodges’ role as a lobbyist during the Obama campaign and the declaration of “never” hiring or allowing a lobbyist to be part of his administration. Yet, as we know, the list of lobbyists serving Obama is a long one. How did Obama justify having Hodges as a member of his campaign staff? Simple, Hodges was on the state level, not federal as an elected official.
Sorry–I think Steve Gantt is doing an excellent job. I like having several ears to speak to about issues–my district representative and the three at large members.
My local government mentor, Professor John Stucker, former president of the University Hill Neighborhood Association, who is from Chicago, where I also lived for a spell, points out that Chicago has had great mayors and terrible mayors, both strong and weak. When I practiced law there, the game was to never go through city council if you could possibly avoid it–municipal finance was done as much as possible through state finance authorities. NYC has had pretty good mayors of late, but Philadelphia, Washington, DC and other cities of the NE Megalopolis have not been so blessed. Dennis Kucinich was once a strong mayor. Does that give you pause?
And of course, our recent skirmish with a blessedly weak governor highlights many of my concerns about a powerful chief executive….
Government is done by people. Some are good and competent; some are not. I don’t know that the format matters as much as the people doing the governing.
Format matters, very much so. Of course you are right, the people doing the governing are crucial, and can use or misuse any system. But if the structure is fundamentally flawed, then it wastes time and frustrates good people.
An example from the field of accounting may not be so relevant (I can’t think of anything better right now, but I’m in a hurry), but we’ve only recently got our chart of accounts up to where we really need it. The previous one caused us unimaginable frustration, constantly looking for data that should have been easily at our fingertips.
I’m constantly working on structures of a 60-year old organization, and revamping and facilitating. The hard part, of course, is training the members to work according to, and along with, the new structure.
Government is done by people. Some are good and competent; some are not. I don’t know that the format matters as much as the people doing the governing.
Kathryn, Truer words were never spoken. There is no evidence that I am aware of that a mayor-council form of government would attract a higher caliber of candidate the the current council manager system. Riley has done what he has in Charleston not so much because of the system under which he serves as because of his individual leadership skills.
I believe it WOULD attract better candidates. I can’t prove it, but I believe it would.
And the point is that once you DID have a better mayor, or governor, that person would be empowered to coordinate the executive resources of the city or state and focus them upon positive change.
Right now, that is next to impossible. And we are never going to make appreciable progress as long as we deliberately keep the government ineffective because we worry that we’ll have another BAD executive, a la Sanford.
Let’s have some faith in our ability to make a difference, and just resolve to do all we can to elect GOOD governors and mayors. Let’s give ourselves credit, and give ourselves a chance.
Other cities, e.g. Greenville, seem to get along fine with a mayor-council form (or at least I have not heard of them financing airlines, attempting to finance hotels, paying bills multiple times and losing track of the cost of employee health insurance. We just seem to have had a group in control who were not interested in the grunt work of fiscal responsibility (though Finlay and Rickenman seem to be casting a watchful eye on that now) and a yes man City Manager whose outstanding trait was that he seems to be a nice guy. I don’t think an empowered Bob Coble would have made any difference as he seemed to be in the lead in bad decision making or non-making.
At any rate this seems to be useless as there is no will to change. How long did the recent commitee work to essentially disband having done nothing? Did they even come up with a set of recommendations? if so, where can I find it?
I can’t help but think you people have never seen good people trying to function under bad structures. They can wipe out the best intentions, and frustrate the most valiant efforts.
Of course the leader herself/himself is the most important, I agree. But bad structures can ruin any business (just have a look at some of Itchak Adizes’ writings on corporate management), and government does have a lot of aspects of a business.
I believe it WOULD attract better candidates. I can’t prove it, but I believe it would.
-Brad
This was the problem with round 1 of state restructuring circa 1992 and the The State’s coverage of it. After all the ranting and raving by the editorial board to get some sort of restructuring legislation a bill was finally passed that achieved many of the objectives the paper desired. DPS became a quasi cabinet agency and many other functions of government were consolidated. Did it work to achieve more efficient government? The answer is a resounding NO! DPS was a cluster **** of epic proportions.
Yet you would never know that given the “faith based” coverage of the aftermath. There was never any real follow-up of the restructuring fiasco to objectively determine if there was any value gained. No, it was simply a matter of applying the “I BELIEVE it would work approach to journalism.
Now we have a new situation with different players: The city of Columbia. Again the focus is on style not substance. Obviously if Austin had proven himself to be an effective administrator we wouldn’t be having this discussion. Yet the answer to Columbia’s problems are only addressed in terms of structure. A really good Mayor could overcome the problems of the city and it would now be an efficient and effectively run outfit that we could be proud of. At the end of the day we have a poorly run city because of incompetent administrators, NOT because of the structure of the government.
Brad , the council-manager form of government provides the flexibility of replacement of the manager at any time the council sees fit. If he or she is incompetent, then replace them immediately. However, if an elected mayor is incompetent there is no way to remove him from office until the next election, which could be three or more years away. I’d much rather take my chances with the council-manager than a mayor who has a full four years to obliterate my town.