Municipal officer

“ The government, as provided by the charter of 1867 and numerous amendments thereto, is vested in a mayor, who holds office for two years, and a common council, which elects all administrative officials, excepting the statutory municipal officers, who are chosen by popular vote. The city owns and operates the water-works. ”

“ They are, however, still further subdivided; and amongst the municipal officers are to be found parish commissioners, who audit the expenses of public worship; different classes of inspectors, some of whom are to direct the citizens in case of fire; tithing-men, listers, haywards, chimney-viewers, fence-viewers to maintain the bounds of property, timber-measurers, and sealers of weights and measures [6] .
There are nineteen principal offices in a township. Every inhabitant is constrained, on pain of being fined, to undertake these different functions ”

“ We are now on the eve of the first municipal election under the amended Constitution. The importance of the crisis is magnified by the fact that the municipal officers to be elected at the coming election will have the care of the business interests of the great municipality created by the new charter, their administration extending over a greatly enlarged territory, and their constituents being a population numbering upward of three millions of souls. The importance of the selection of proper officers for the management of the affairs of this imperial city cannot be exaggerated. ”

“ Whether the board of public works is also a part of and an agency of the municipal corporation is the question before us.
1. The authorities state, and our own knowledge is to the effect, that the care and superintendence of streets, alleys, and highways, the regulation of grades, and the opening of new and closing of old streets, are peculiarly municipal duties. No other power can so wisely and judiciously control this subject as the authority of the immediate locality where the work is to be done. ”

“ It is a mistake to think lightly of the importance of municipal office, or of the responsibilities which are attached to it, either on the part of the citizen, who, as a member of the council, conducts the affairs of the town, or of the citizen who plays the part of taxpayer—and complainant in general. ”

“ A municipal corporation may act through its mayor, though its common council, or its legislative department by whatever name called, its superintendent of streets, commissioner of highways, or board of public works, provided the act is within the province committed to its charge. Nor can it in principle be of the slightest consequence by what means these several officers are placed in their position,-whether they are elected by the people of the municipality, or appointed by the President or a governor. The people are the recognized source of all authority, state and municipal ”

“ To this end it seems to me desirable that when municipal offices are to be filled the discharge of the duties of which requires professional knowledge, skill and experience, the selection should be confined to professional men of good standing. Let us take for an example a department about which there may be some doubt in this respect, the department of public works, meaning the department which has in its charge the matter of drainage, of water supply, of street paving and similar things. It is certainly one of the most important branches of the municipal government. ”

“ A number of chief executive officers are elected for four years; the mayor and Council appoint others, and the appointment is made at the middle of the mayor's term in order to lessen the immediate influence of municipal patronage upon elections. Single commissioners control the parks, streets, water service, harbour and wharves, and sewers, and these constitute, with the mayor, a board of public improvement. Under an enabling act of 1907 the municipal assembly in 1909 created a public service commission, of three members, appointed by the mayor. ”

“ Of the administrative officials, only the license inspector and public weighers are appointed by the executive, the municipal council controlling appointments to all other offices except the following, which are filled by popular election: attorney, comptroller, commissioner of public works, marshal, engineer, tax collector, treasurer, and sexton. ”

“ This municipal assembly shall be the Council of Administration, which shall establish for the entire extent of its jurisdiction the rules of the common regime, and shall decide on all that concerns the municipal police, its internal security, sanitary policy, the management and use of municipal revenues, local expenditures, and generally all that is within the jurisdiction of the municipalities.
Art. 43. The active power shall be entirely, and for all the extent of the municipal district, in the hands of the mayor and his lieutenant, who shall be elected immediately by the primary assemblies. ”

“ All other employees including municipal and municipal district officials shall be appointed by the Commissioner concerned, upon the recommendation of the proper chief or director of bureau or office, from the list of eligibles as certified by the Director of Civil Service, but in the case of municipal mayors and municipal council members, the recommendation of the governor concerned shall be sufficient. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The mayor shall have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases arising under the ordinances of the corporation, and shall issue such process as may be necessary to carry said ordinances into execution and effect, appeals may be had from any decision or judgment of said mayor, or aldermen, arising under the city ordinances, to the municipal court, under such regulations as may be presented by ordinance. ”

“ In other parishes, municipal administrations shall be composed of a mayor and two administrators; a substitute commissary of the responsible tribunal shall hold the function of commissary near the municipality gratuitously.
Art. 49. Members of these municipal administrations shall be nominated for two years; they may always continue beyond that time. Their nomination devolves to the Governor, who, on a list of at least sixteen individuals, presented by each municipal administration, chooses the persons most appropriate to manage the affairs of each parish. ”

“ No public functionary, appointed by the king, and in the exercise of his functions, shall be nominated to the office of alcalde, regidor, or town proctor. Those persons who serve in the militia are not included in this article.
Art. 319. No one, without a legal cause, can excuse himself from exercising the aforesaid municipal offices.
Art. 320. Each municipal council shall elect, by an absolute majority of votes, one secretary, who shall be paid out of the funds of the corporation. ”

“ In the system of municipal council and manager there shall also be a mayor who shall preside over the Municipal Council and shall be the representative of the people in all acts of an official or social character. ”

“ 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 main elective officers of the city are the mayor, treasurer, comptroller, two municipal judges, and the members of the city council, twenty-six in number, two from each ward elected for four years, one being chosen in each ward at every biennial election. The council is a unicameral body. The mayor, treasurer, and comptroller are elected for two years. The mayor's veto may be overridden by a two-thirds vote of the council. There are also the following elective boards: Library board, park board, and board of education. ”

“ People's councils of municipalities directly under the central authority, and of municipalities divided into districts may set up bureaux, divisions, committees or commissions to take charge of civil affairs, public security, justice, supervision, planning, finances, food, taxation, industry, commerce, labour, culture, education, public health, physical culture and sports, projects of municipal construction, and public services ”

“ The Mayor, therefore, is the chief executive officer of the city and he either appoints solely, or with the consent of the city council in some instances, the city officers not constitutionally required to be elected. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the office of the Mayor is vacant, or the Mayor is unable to perform his duties due to his illness or other reasons, he must appoint another person to that office to perform his duties until he is able to reassume his duties. ”

“ In some localities the inhabitants have met together and voluntarily formed a municipal organization for the purposes of local government, adopting the form of a municipal constitution and charter, under which said officials have been appointed; and ordinances creating and regulating a police force, a fire department, a department of health, and making provision for the care of the insane and indigent poor and sick and for public schools, have been passed. ”

“ The municipalities are in their area under their own responsibility the only public body responsible for the whole local public administration. They can take over any public duty if it is not by explicit legal regulation assigned exclusively to other bodies in urgent public interest.
(2) The municipal unions have within their legal responsibilities the same position.
(3) The right to self-administer their matters are provided to the municipalities and municipal unions by the state. The overseeing of the state is restricted to ensuring that the administration is in conformance with the laws. ”

“ A city of the second class must elect a mayor and twelve councilmen, and its mayor must appoint a police judge, an attorney, a street commissioner and a chief of police. A city of the third class must elect a mayor, seven councilmen, a treasurer, a health officer, a clerk and an attorney, and its mayor must apoint a marshal, a police justice and as many policemen as the council provides for. An incorporated town must elect a mayor, five councilmen and a treasurer, and its mayor must appoint a marshal and a clerk. ”

“ All municipal governments are but agencies of the superior power of the state or government by which they are constituted, and are invested with only such subordinate powers of local legislation and control as the superior legislature sees fit to confer upon them. The form of those agencies and the mode of appointing officials to execute them are matters of legislative discretion. Commissioners are not unfrequently appointed by the legislature or executive of a state for the administration of municipal affairs, or some portion thereof, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The mayor, or his deputy, appointed under his hand and seal, or in case of the mayor's death, the surviving justice of the peace, who last served the office of mayor, shall be the presiding officer at every election of mayor, sheriffs, aldermen, and common council-men, and of such scrutinies as shall be demanded thereupon. ”

“ In case a department or municipal administration should lose one or several of its members by death, resignation, or otherwise, the remaining administrators in filling the places can add to themselves temporary administrators who act in that capacity until the following elections. ”

“ The Municipal Civil Service Commission, consisting of three members appointed by the Mayor, maintains a regular staff of examiners of applicants for city positions. The regular payroll of the city includes nearly 85,000 persons, of whom about 30,000 are not under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service. There are also about 20,000 others who are employed part of the time. ”

“ The municipal and internal affairs are managed by a provincial assembly elected by the people. Every villa or borough throughout the province also possesses its municipal council, and in thinly-populated districts, the inhabitants choose every four years a justice of the peace who adjudicates in small disputes between neighbours. ”