Strong Mayor System Not For The Timid Confrontation Between Mayor, Council Will Be Part Of The Program

So, you’re hoping the strong mayor system of government will put an end to the divisiveness at City Hall?

Well, you might want to keep on hoping.

The strong mayor, whom Spokane voters will begin electing at Tuesday’s primary, will certainly have broad and sweeping powers.

But because the new system of government has built-in checks and balances between the City Council and mayor, it is confrontational by design.

So while viewers of council meetings on CityCable 5 won’t get to watch the mayor spar with the council - it’s unlikely the mayor will appear before the council, save for annual addresses - the new year may be just as rancorous as the last one.

Under the current system, the city’s chief executive, the city manager, works for the City Council, and the mayor is just one of seven council members. If the council disagrees with the manager’s actions, it can fire him and find someone else. As a result, the city manager pretty much does what the council wants.

Under the new system, the chief executive is elected. He - and it will be a he at first, as only men are running this time - answers to the electorate, and if the council doesn’t like what he does, well, tough.

The mayor won’t have unlimited power, of course. The council must approve his appointments, and will vote on his budget. If the council passes a law the mayor doesn’t like, he can veto it. And with five votes, they can override the veto.

All of this brings Spokane much more in line with the systems used by the state and federal governments. And we all know how well they get along.

The trade-off for the institutionalized ill will is leadership, says Councilman Steve Eugster, who authored the strong mayor initiative.

“My criticism of the city manager form of government is that no one is really in charge,” he said. “Nobody is saying `Hey, I’m responsible for this.’ It’s duck and cover the whole way.”

With a strong mayor, a politically unpopular project like the Lincoln Street bridge would never have been allowed to progress as far as it did, Eugster believes.

“I anticipate a lot of leadership,” Eugster said. The new system “will ensure that there is an elected leader to make sure that someone is looking at the larger picture for the city of Spokane.”

But Terry Novak, Spokane’s city manager for 13 years and a government professor, sees a system based on “mutual distrust.”

While the council-manager system had parallels to a European parliamentary system, the strong mayor is the result of Thomas Jefferson’s revolutionary philosophy, Novak said.

Jefferson believed that “the more you set government at odds with itself, the more you protect the freedom of its citizens,” he said.

“I foresee more opportunity to gridlock,” Novak said. “We’re going from a system that enforces some degree of cooperation to one that makes it more difficult to have that sort of cooperation.”

Not everyone is as gloomy in their outlook.

City Attorney Jim Sloane, who has been helping craft the various new laws and charter changes that are necessary for the switch of governments, envisions a system that has the best of both worlds.

The current system provides for skilled professional managers but doesn’t give them the political mandate the strong mayor will have, Sloane said.

“The community has had the experience of the council-manager form of government for 40 years,” Sloane said. “There’s a lot expectations in place that the city will recruit the best possible people. The council can mandate that through the confirmation process. It can require the mayor to recruit the best possible people.”

The council will also be able to exert its influence during the budgeting process.

Because the mayor will oversee the day-to-day running of the city, he will deliver a budget for the council to approve. The council can make changes, however, and if the mayor doesn’t approve, he can use his veto power.

The council could override that veto with five votes.

Even after the budget is agreed on, the council will be able to pass emergency budget ordinances - spending unbudgeted money - with five votes. The council will also approve the city’s weekly expenditures, as it does now for the manager, and can in theory use that as leverage against the mayor.

Eugster said he doesn’t see that happening.

“Once the council approves that budget, then the mayor will have the authority of that budget,” he said. “Then the council will seem very silly trying to prevent that budget that it approved in November.”

It’s in the budgeting, along with approving the confirmations, where Sloane sees the most friction rising between the council and mayor.

“So much (of running the city) is governed by the realities of state law,” Sloane said. “The freedom of movement, the freedom of action is much less than you would think.”

But there will no doubt be room for conflict.

The success of next year’s government will have much to do with the attitudes of the mayor and council president, who will be running the council, said Councilwoman Roberta Greene.

Candidates for strong mayor are current Mayor John Talbott, attorney John Powers, state Sen. Jim West and retiree Robert Kroboth. The top two vote-getters in Tuesday’s primary will advance to November’s general election. Seeking the council president’s post in the November election are Rob Higgins and Steve Corker.

“A lot of next year will be hinging on communication, and the communication skills of the council president and the mayor,” Greene said. “We can have an adversarial relationship or we can have one that is a cooperative, collaborative one. “Do I see growing pains? Yes.”

On that, Eugster agrees.

“It’s going to be tough for a while,” he said. “There’s going to be a learning curve there.”

This sidebar appeared with the story: New checks and balances at City Hall

Under the strong mayor form of government, which will go into ef- fect in January, the mayor will have new powers. But the council will also have considerable powers to check the mayor.

Here’s how it breaks down:

The mayor will be able to:

Hire all department heads and their assistants, including a new administrative officer.

Write the city’s budget.

Make day-to-day decisions for running the city.

Serve as the ceremonial head of the city.

Veto ordinances enacted by the City Council. The veto can be applied to sections of ordinances.

The City Council will be able to:

Approve all of the mayor’s appointments, save the administrator.

Approve the budget.

Approve weekly expenditures and contracts entered into by the mayor.

Hire its own staff, including the hearing examiner and internal auditor.

Pass emergency budget ordinances (with five votes),

Override the mayor’s veto (with five votes).