Under our new form of government, all the mayor does (besides acting as Portland’s cheerleader-in-chief) is hire a city manager. The city manager is the one who actually DOES THINGS that could bring changes to the city. And that person is not chosen? This position seems like scapegoating: if they don’t make Portland perfect, the mayor can just fire them and hire someone new. Am I wrong? —I voted for people who could be elected

I understand why a democracy lover like you might feel uncomfortable with a system that grants supreme executive authority to an unelected, Voted official. That said, as you may be realizing right now, our system of choosing CEOs through elections hasn’t exactly proven to be foolproof either.

In any case, the executive authority exercised by a city manager is not really all that supreme: despite their influence over administrative operations and procedures, city managers do not formulate policy.

The council-manager model developed in the 1910s in response to the political machinery of previous decades, with “strong mayors” whose autocratic rule and “l’etat, c’est moi” attitude were often accompanied by a generous aid of corruption, cronyism and mismanagement.

To avoid this, the creators of the new system decided to separate executive authority (the power to “do things”) from legislative authority, the power to decide what to do. Legislative authority rests with the council, which sets civic priorities as the people’s representative. City administrators do not represent anyone; They exercise their limited executive authority solely as agents of the council.

It’s true that city managers are easy to fire, but that’s not a bug, it’s a feature! If you don’t like the mayor (use your imagination), your only options are to wait for the next election or organize a cumbersome recall. However, a city manager serves at the discretion of the council.

Finally, the fact that they weren’t chosen is actually the best part. Let’s face it, we are bad at choosing leaders. The very idea of ​​a city manager is more or less a tacit acknowledgment that we’re too stupid to elect competent, effective city managers: We’ll trample over a dozen budgeting and operations experts to get to one car salesman with good hair. The board-manager system takes this crucial hiring decision away from us, and goodbye. I’ve said it before: democracy is too important a business to leave in the hands of the people.

Questions? send them to [email protected].