City manager tops agenda for charter commission

Instead of muddling through with a mayor at the helm, the city ought to revise its government blueprint to have a manager take care of administrative responsibilities, several residents told the Charter Revision Commission Tuesday.
Businessman Craig Yarde said that handling the duties required of mayors today is “beyond the capacity” of anyone.
With so many meetings to preside over, ceremonial functions to perform, hundreds of employees to lead and a $164 million budget to keep an eye on, supporters of changing to a managerial form of government say that mayors can’t possibly keep up.
Under the existing system, there is “much too much power and responsibility for even the best of men and women” serving in the city’s top job, said Republican mayoral hopeful Ken Johnson.
“We are not a small town anymore,” said resident Gary Wyrebek. “We need someone who knows what they’re doing” in charge, he added.
The seven-member commission also heard requests to amend the charter to allow for public votes on major projects, a larger City Council, longer terms for elected leaders, an appointed Board of Education and perhaps even spring elections.
Tim Furey, chairman of the panel, said it will weed through the many suggestions it’s received and figure which ones it wants to investigate in greater depth. The city manager proposal is virtually certain to make the first cut.
Art Ward, the Democratic mayoral contender, said he doesn’t have a solid position on the idea of adopting a managerial form of government in Bristol.
Saying that it is time to probe the possibility, Ward called for the commission “to sit there and actually address it” in the coming months.
The panel is slated to make its recommendations for charter changes to the council in April. If the council agrees with them, proposals will be placed on the November 2008 ballot for the public to approve or reject.
Both Johnson and Ward said they’d like to see a change to allow big ticket projects to go on the ballot in the future so that taxpayers can decide their fate.
The proposal to switch to a city manager would mean a drastic shakeup in the way Bristol has operated since it adopted the charter in 1911. It has always relied on a strong mayor form of government, though in the Great Depression the city added a Board of Finance that has the ultimate say on spending and bonding.
Johnson said that adding a manager would be an investment, not an expense, because whoever would be hired should easily find ways to make City Hall more efficient.
He said the manager would serve as “a firewall between our politics and the administration of government.”
Yarde said there is simply “not enough time” to mayors to manage effectively while handling all of their other duties.
“At the end of the day, this guy or gal needs to be a visionary,” Yarde said, but there’s little opportunity for a mayor to devote much attention to what the city could become because they’re buried in minutia.
Yarde said the city’s department heads are “crying out for leadership.”
With a manager in place, Yarde said, city councilors would be freed up to make policy decisions.
The way things are now, “nobody feels like they have a voice,” Yarde said.
But a manager “diffuses the power of special interests” and encourages “the free flow of information” to the public, political leaders and city staff, Yarde said.
“Our city is a business,” said Ken Cockayne, a Republican council hopeful, and needs an expert to manage it. Mayors don’t have the qualification in public administration that’s truly required for the job, he said.
The members of the charter panel Furey, Gail Hartmann, Dick Prindle, Al Marko, Maria Pirro, Hal Kilby and Harley Graham.

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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com