Annapolis Capital Punishment

In our continuing FAQ on the city manager issue, we again bring you the knowledgeable answers provided by Doug Smith and Bill Kardash. For their bios, and the previous questions, see the original posting of 12-9.

6. Do we as voters lose control over the city?
Absolutely not. With council-manager, voters actually have more representation. Power is now shared across the mayor and aldermen. The city manager is 100% accountable to our elected officials. This structure requires that city council – our elected representatives – are pleased with the city manager performance. If good service is not provided, the city manager’s job is on the line.

7. Some people have said we can’t talk to people in government if we get a city manager.
There is no basis in fact to this comment. Citizens can talk to anyone – same as today. We can talk to the mayor, to aldermen to department directors, to the city manager. If you have a problem or just want to discuss an idea, you can talk to anyone. In fact, with a city manager, you would now have a professional who is directly responsible for daily operations – he is the most direct person to solve a problem. The aldermen can also talk to anyone they want to. The new system would greatly improve their access to information because the city manager would have knowledge of everything going on in every department. Is it really a good use of the mayor’s time to complain that your trash was not picked up? Or that people are parking illegally on your street? I think not. Far better to get these problems solved in the quickest and easiest way.

8. What is the objective of City Manager... that is, what is the nature of the problem to be fixed?
Two primary objectives – the council-manager structure let’s us ELECT a popular, political leader, and to HIRE a trained professional. We achieve good management and we reduce the amount of political pressure on day –to-day operating decisions. The current system elects a popular politician that can win votes, but that is no assurance that person is a skilled manager.

9. Will the City manager have too much power?
The job of city manager is to implement what city council says. If that doesn’t happen, you fire the city manager. The job does not have tenure. You write a good contract that says the city manager serves at the will of city council. We seem to always want to dwell on the negatives. What about a few positives? What if the city manager actually saves us money? What if the city manager actually improves city services/ What if the city manager actually makes Annapolis easier to do business with? Those are the kinds of benefits many many cities have seen.

10. Some people have said we are turning over the budget to a non-elected person.
The city budget today is prepared by a non-elected person – the city finance director. We don’t hear anyone screaming about that. In actual fact, under the new system, the city manager would get direction from city council and PREPARE a draft budget, working with the finance director. This budget would get massaged and alerted by the mayor and city council to balance needs with available funding. Final APPROVAL rests with city council – same as today. However, a big difference would be the management skill of the city manager to coordinate the various departments and look for efficiencies. The public finance training and previous experience of the city manager would most likely result in significant cost savings.

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