Long Beach City Mayoral Referendum Endorsement
Posted
Keep the city manager
There are any number of good reasons why electing a mayor of Long Beach could be a good thing - the ritual of electing our leaders is sacred to us. The referendum before the voters on Tuesday that would return that right to the people, however, is so deeply flawed that it should be rejected.
A more deeply thought-out initiative, accompanied by the recommendations of an independent charter review committee, is the only way a change this drastic should be undertaken.
As it reads, the referendum would remove the city manager's day-to-day accountability to the City Council and create a largely ceremonial post that would unnecessarily expand the government without eliminating the need for professional administration. In essence, nothing would change, except that the city's true manager - the one who would continue to run day-to-day operations - would function outside public scrutiny, while a politician, drawing an exorbitant salary, would operate as politicians do - in his or her own interest.
Instead, we suggest a two-year charter review, led by the League of Women Voters, to rethink Long Beach's government from top to bottom. Changing a single job title will fix nothing.
Managing a city like Long Beach is a full-time job, and over the past decade the city manager's position has been weakened by party politics. This "solution," however, would only make it worse. Among a city manager's duties are negotiating with unions, overseeing infrastructure rehabilitation projects, writing bid requests, managing emergency evacuations, hiring midlevel personnel and dictating public policy. It would be dangerous and unprofessional for politics to get in the way of any of those tasks, yet that is what this referendum would do: assure the politicization of the day-to-day management of the city, from hiring to infrastructure management to spending. For a city with Long Beach's history of bossism and patronage, the creation of a mayoral form of government promises to take us several steps backward.
Think of the politicians you know who are active in city affairs - that is where we would draw our pool of candidates for mayor. Which one do you trust to perform any of the above tasks without mixing in party politics?
Proponents of the referendum say it would bring accountability to the chief executive's position. We believe it would have the opposite effect, and that there is nothing wrong with City Hall that competitive council elections, an informed electorate and professional management can't fix.
There are any number of good reasons why electing a mayor of Long Beach could be a good thing - the ritual of electing our leaders is sacred to us. The referendum before the voters on Tuesday that would return that right to the people, however, is so deeply flawed that it should be rejected.
A more deeply thought-out initiative, accompanied by the recommendations of an independent charter review committee, is the only way a change this drastic should be undertaken.
As it reads, the referendum would remove the city manager's day-to-day accountability to the City Council and create a largely ceremonial post that would unnecessarily expand the government without eliminating the need for professional administration. In essence, nothing would change, except that the city's true manager - the one who would continue to run day-to-day operations - would function outside public scrutiny, while a politician, drawing an exorbitant salary, would operate as politicians do - in his or her own interest.
Instead, we suggest a two-year charter review, led by the League of Women Voters, to rethink Long Beach's government from top to bottom. Changing a single job title will fix nothing.
Managing a city like Long Beach is a full-time job, and over the past decade the city manager's position has been weakened by party politics. This "solution," however, would only make it worse. Among a city manager's duties are negotiating with unions, overseeing infrastructure rehabilitation projects, writing bid requests, managing emergency evacuations, hiring midlevel personnel and dictating public policy. It would be dangerous and unprofessional for politics to get in the way of any of those tasks, yet that is what this referendum would do: assure the politicization of the day-to-day management of the city, from hiring to infrastructure management to spending. For a city with Long Beach's history of bossism and patronage, the creation of a mayoral form of government promises to take us several steps backward.
Think of the politicians you know who are active in city affairs - that is where we would draw our pool of candidates for mayor. Which one do you trust to perform any of the above tasks without mixing in party politics?
Proponents of the referendum say it would bring accountability to the chief executive's position. We believe it would have the opposite effect, and that there is nothing wrong with City Hall that competitive council elections, an informed electorate and professional management can't fix.
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