Who Can Decide How to Reinvent?

My city is asking the question of whether or not to change from having a Mayor to having a City Manager. There is an acknowledgement of a problem. Unfortunately the decision will be up to the City Council. The result will be no change and no improvement.  

The republican (little r)  form of government in the United States is far better than what most countries have. A big problem though is that a body of elected officials is a bureaucracy. The first goal of any bureaucracy is to protect and perpetuate itself. Often it is blind to its shortcomings. Mistakes are ignored for the sake of the bureaucracy. 

The following is a letter to the editor that I wrote. Within the realm of Cowboy Safety the point is that there are alternatives that can do much better job. None of my alternatives will even be considered. Why? Because consideration would be an admission that the present system has flaws. Mayor or City Manager? It makes no difference because both are under the control of the City Council. 

Mayor or City Manager? How about none of the above? 

What could a City Manager do about “The Hole”  and snow removal downtown that a Mayor can’t do?

The potential lack of administrative skills of an elected mayor is true of other elected officials. This past week we saw testimony by Jon Corzine, ex-governor and ex-U.S. Senator, that as CEO of MF Global he has no idea what happened to $1.2 billion. He claimed ignorance of accounting. 

A new type of thinking is needed that is not learned in an MBA program or with experience in another city with the same problems. 

A new type of thinking is needed because the percentage of government revenue going to pensions is increasing. The WTE on December 11 told of a California teacher that retired last July at age 59 with a pension of $174,308. Millions of retirees will live to be 100. What plan is in effect for retirees collecting pensions for 40 years?

A new type of thinking is needed because Cheyenne, with 554 employees, has one employee per 100 citizens. The budget of $111 million is expense of more than $2,000 for each man, woman, and child. 

Four ideas:

1. Sell the City corporation to a private business. 

2. Merge county and city.

3. Adopt the Town Meeting form of government that has worked in New England for over 250 years. No city council or mayor. Rather than “government does everything” the citizens often choose to do things by themselves, with neighborhood groups, or with outsourcing. The citizens can change anything at any time. 

4. Create a volunteer group of citizens to look at these and other alternatives to be on a ballot.

David Sneed