Many people will already hold the mayor accountable for the direction Sacramento is going.  We all know as a matter of definition that a mayor is in charge of his or her city.  Of course as readers here already know, this isn’t the case in California where the vast majority of mayors are virtually just another member of the city council.   But reality has a funny way of not being noticed and voters are going to hold their mayor accountable for the direction their city is taking whether or not the mayor could have changed the direction.     Hoping that voters will think collectively at a higher level than this is wishful thinking.

Here is my evidence:

According to mydd.com, “In 2002, 72% of the electorate believed that Democrats controlled the House of Representatives.”  The link is http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/2/7/19510/54245 But as some of you may know Republicans actually controlled the House of Representatives that year.  How could so many poll respondents be so wrong?  The answer obviously is that people don’t typically understand politics.

Even if voters understood that in Sacramento each city council member has a nearly equal amount of power as the mayor this would lead the electorate to being puzzled by a complicated situation. Our current system of a  powerful council forces voters to figure out which of the council members are serving well and which are not.  I think this is a lot harder for a person to decide than it sounds.

Here is an illustration of this issue.  A woman lives in a poor section of town and notices that her neighborhood has increased killings and robberies under a mayor.  If the strong mayor proposal has passed she will know who to hold accountable for this because the mayor will be in charge of deciding where to focus the efforts of the police.   Under the current system her city councilman may have been trying to fight for her but the city manager might not have seen the councilman as a needed ally.  Instead a city manager may have had an incentive to distribute police to council members who support him.  The woman will have no way of knowing if her city councilman is fighting for her or neglecting her.

Therefore a benefit that the strong mayor system would bring is the voters would be able to replace the mayor when he seems to be mismanaging the city.   Naturally if mayors control the direction of the city and can be held responsible every four years then this provides the mayor with a powerful incentive to manage the city well.  I would expect the strong mayor system to lead to greater city efficiency and responsiveness because of the added accountability.

I suppose I should explain why I think accountability is lacking in our current system.  In our system a city manager runs Sacramento.  The city manager needs the support of at least a majority of the city council to keep his position.  Also in Sacramento we have eight districts where council members are elected from.  And we have one mayor who serves as a council member but represents the entire city.   Hypothetically the city manager will seek to keep his job by satisfying at least five people on the council.  If he needs to redirect police forces to certain council districts in order to keep the support of at least five members then he will.   Of course this would lead to the other districts being without sufficient police protection.  But as I said a city manager is really only accountable to a majority of the city’s districts not to the entire city.

A strong mayor proposal would lead to the city manager not “needing to count to five” supporters on the city council but instead simply serving the mayor.

I think having five bosses would drive anyone crazy.  In most cities a city manager only lasts a few years.  This is probably because it is impossible to satisfy so many people at one time.  If I was a city manager I would only be able to relax if I had a single boss.  A good system of governance should never involve multiple bosses who are directly in charge of one person. And is it really wise to have a system that leads to the city manager being stressed?   Would this not dramatically affect how he does his job?