City manager

“ Out of this grew a city-manager form of commission government, which the National Municipal League recommended to charter-makers, then multiplying in great numbers due to the growing dissatisfaction with existing conditions. A second “municipal programme” formally adopted by the National Municipal League in 1914, definitely embodied the city-manager plan and later recommended that the council or legislative body be elected on the principle of proportional representation.
The city-manager movement is justly regarded as the best fruit of the movement for better municipal government. ”

“ I can suggest no permanent solution of the problem of municipal government that does not embrace the training of men for its particular duties. A development of the city-manager plan, of nation-wide scope, fortified by special courses of training in schools able to give the dignity of a stable profession to municipal administration may ultimately be the remedy. ”

“ Their duty is to select an expert city manager who will receive a high salary, and conduct personally and through his appointees the whole business of the city. The commissioners may dismiss him if his work is not satisfactory and engage another to take his place. Responsibility is concentrated; mismanagement can be stopped at once, more readily even than by the recall; unity and continuity of policy become possible; in short, the same successful methods that have made American business the admiration of the world can be applied to politics. ”

“ The city council shall employ a city manager under the terms and conditions it shall provide. The current city clerk shall continue to serve until the position becomes vacant, but shall serve under the direction of the city manager. ”

“ By this plan the voters elect a small council, or board of directors, who in turn appoint a MANAGER who serves as a superintendent over the affairs of the city or town. He is a trained specialist, often an engineer, and cities and towns sometimes search the country over for the best man available for the place. The manager appoints the heads of the various departments of government, such as health, police, public works, etc., and is responsible to the council for their work. It is the application to town government of methods long used by successful business corporations. ”

“ There is, therefore, no such careful attention to the business of the city, or independent action in office as could be secured by an independent commission devoting its whole time to the city business and carefully considering every proposition from the same standpoint of the best interests of the city as would be taken by the manager of a railroad, bank, or factory seeking to promote the interests of the stockholders. ”

“ A manager is appointed by the city authorities, subject to the supervision of the director, and monthly reports are made. City funds are appropriated, and the supply is kept up from the last vintages, so that the public may be supplied with a pure article at moderate prices. ”

“ The mayor is the chief executive of the city. It is his duty to see that the laws are enforced. He appoints a number of subordinate officers, and in most cities may veto the acts of the city council. The duties of the city attorney, the city clerk, the assessor, the collector, the treasurer, the school board, and the superintendent of schools are similar to those of township and county officers of the same name. The city engineer has charge of the construction of sewers and the improvement of parks. ”

“ Let us make our own selections—or, rather, help our mayor to make hers—and show this town what can be done with an honest and sane council, every man of whom has at heart the framing of a model municipality and the development of an ideal city. ”

“ If there is a corrupt council, the remedy is not its supersession by an independent executive. Such an executive is the abrogation of popular government. “Good and efficient government is possible under almost any form of organization. More depends upon men than devices.... But ... if we believe that the functions of deliberation or determination of municipal policy and of administration [Pg 63] or the execution or carrying out of that policy should be kept distinct, we cannot avoid the conclusion that a city council is a necessary part of the municipal organization.” ”

“ The executive arm of the city is represented by the mayor and seventy-two subordinate officers, of which the auditor, treasurer and city attorney are principal, and have a limited jurisdiction independent of the mayor. The city engineer in charge of the development work of streets, sewers, bridges and other constructions, is an appointee of the mayor, but must discharge his duties in accordance with limitations and obligations of the charter and ordinances and the acts and directions of the council and committee on streets and sewers. ”

“ The ward or district method of electing city councilmen does not produce a body interested in the best development of the city as a unit, the best transit system for the whole city, the best park system for the whole people, the most complete playground system for all the children. Instead, forty units, more or less, with selfish ideas fostered by local business men and property owners, are represented each by a councilman whose best equipment is his ability to get things for his own ward, and the city plan develops like a crazy quilt. ”

“ It is a matter of grave public concern for the people to know in what spirit an officer intrusted for the first time in the history of our city with such powers purposes to use them. The whole theory of the law is that the Mayor shall be responsible for the administration of the city's affairs, and for the policy which animates the different departments. It makes the relation of the different commissioners and heads of departments to the Mayor practically that of the cabinet officer to his chief. ”

“ A mayor and various other executive officers and a legislative unicameral council are elected for four years. The mayor and the heads of departments consult as a “cabinet.” Various boards—of civil service, public debt, education, health, police, fire, drainage, water and sewerage and state commissioners of the port—control many of the most important interests of the city. ”

“ If the plan commission is to be an intelligent correlating agency, there must be provision for constant reference to it of new construction work of all municipal departments even at the risk of swamping the clerical force of the city planning commission by a mass of detail with little bearing on the city plan. ”

“ Still others were describing the scenes on the streets, the torchlight processions, the happenings at the political headquarters, and telling what the effect of the Board of Aldermen changing from one party to the other would be.
There was not an idle person in the room. The city editor was here, there, everywhere. He seemed to be carrying the responsibility of a dozen men. He was telling everyone to hurry, as it was time for the morning extra to be out on the street. ”

“ The city is provided with 3 commodious and handsome market houses, each of which is the centre of a busy trade.—The government is vested in a mayor, a common council comprising 26 members, 2 from each of the 13 wards, a comptroller, city attorney, street commissioner, treasurer, superintendent of education, city engineer, overseer of the poor, and 3 assessors, all of whom are elected by the people for a term of two years. ”

“ It shall be proper for said cities to provide, by ordinance, for the exercise of all rights and powers herein conferred upon the City Planning Commission, by a park commission, or kindred municipal bureau or commission, authorized under existing laws. And no person holding office under the government of any of said cities, except the mayor, members of councils, or commissioners, shall be ineligible to serve as a member of a City Planning Commission. ”

“ The Bureau of Municipal Research, admittedly the most practical organization of its kind in the country, is conducting its work along the line of effective competency in city departments. As a result of its investigations, the citizens of New York have been forced to the conclusion to which my colleague has already referred, namely, that the ultimate solution of their municipal difficulties will be reached only when they have disposed of their present inefficient and useless ward council and created in its place a commission council. ”

“ In an effort to meet its defects, a number of cities have adopted the policy of doing away entirely with the form of government as outlined, and electing on a non-partisan ticket several commissioners (sometimes headed by a mayor) , each one of whom is put in charge of a division of the city’s administration, and made responsible for the work of this department.
The fact is being recognized that skill and expert training are needed in public officials; that the power should be given to a few men, [Pg 36] and that they should be held responsible for the success of their work. ”

“ The city is organized, like the state government, on the plan of distributed powers and diffused responsibility. It contains, as a rule, an elaborate system of checks which affords little opportunity for the prompt and effective expression of local public opinion in the administration of municipal affairs. At the same time, it gives the municipal authorities power to inaugurate and carry out policies to which local public sentiment may be strongly opposed. This is seen in the control which the mayor and council quite generally exercise over the matter of municipal franchises. ”

“ Down near the railroad station, where the "red-light [ 60] district" used to be, there has long stood a tract of several blocks of little buildings, dismal and dilapidated. They are coming down. Some of them have come down. And there, in that place which was the home of ugliness and vice, there now shows the beginning of the city's Municipal Group Plan. This plan is one of the finest things which any city in the land has contemplated for its own beautification. ”

“ Reformer and consequently he sought to remedy defects by substituting the new and best for the old and worst with as little friction and disturbance as possible. Thus he quietly and without observation, as a master builder, laid foundations and reared the massive superstructures of four of the best-organized and most efficient departments of our city government—viz., the Department of Health, the Fire Department, the Department of Docks, the Police Judiciary. ”

“ The health and the park commissions and the superintendents of street-cleaning, sprinkling, supplies, and certain other officers are appointed by the Mayor. The city surveyor, treasurer, auditor, attorney, and clerk are elected by the people. ”

“ This principle is constantly attracting more and more attention. Boston has recently made some radical changes in her municipal system, which, while they do not go so far in the direction of localizing responsibility in the person of the chief executive as is now true of the city governments of New York and Brooklyn, still largely increase the power of the mayor, and make him to a greater extent than ever before responsible for the conduct of municipal affairs. ”

“ The aim of all organized business is to secure a profit, but the purpose of city administration is to promote the well-being of the citizens. It must be conducted in compliance with the desires of the voters, whatever these desires may be, and must give them what they want. Business can sometimes be managed without any heed to public opinion, but municipal administration cannot. The science of municipal government is, to a considerable extent, that of keeping the people satisfied. ”

“ Under the mayor are various heads of departments,—street commissioners, assessors, overseers of the poor, etc.,—sometimes elected by the citizens, sometimes appointed by the mayor or the city council. This city council Is a legislative body, usually consisting of two chambers, the aldermen and the common council, elected by the citizens; but in many small cities, and a few of the largest,—such as New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, and San Francisco,—there is but one such chamber. ”

“ Many interests are provided for through local government, the five boroughs being divided into 25 local improvement districts. In each borough a president is elected, in whom important powers are vested. The borough presidents control such matters as the grading and paving of streets, sewers, public baths, etc., and the presidents of Queens and Richmond have control also of street-cleaning. ”

“ In municipal government the second and the third rate man, on down to a point where differentiations fade to the vanishing point, finds his greatest hope and security. As first-rate men are not available for the offices, they fall naturally to the inferior, the incompetent, or the corrupt. In few cities of a hundred thousand population is a man of trained ability and recognized fitness ever seriously considered [172] for the mayoralty. Modern city government, with the broad powers conferred upon mayors, requires intelligence of the highest order. ”

“ Just as the larger experiment is designed to lead the nation into a juster and better system of land tenure and a better and more common-sense view of how towns should be built, so are the various pro-municipal undertakings of Garden City devised by those who are prepared to lead the way in enterprises designed to further the well-being of the town, but who have not as yet succeeded in getting their plans or schemes adopted by the Central Council. ”