Good afternoon. My name is Karla McIntosh and I am the president of Citizens for a Better Brunswick. In November, voters will be asked to choose between a City Manager form of government and a Strong-Mayor form of government. Today I will be giving arguments in favor of a Strong-Mayor form of government.

Brunswick currently has a Council-Manager form of government where a part time City Council serves as both the legislative body and the executive branch of the city. Council then hires a fulltime City Manager to serve as the city’s chief administrator, overseeing the day to day operations of every city department. We believe that a fulltime Mayor who is elected by the voters and who is therefore held accountable to the voters should fill this position.

We chose the Strong-Mayor form of government because it allows the citizens to retain the good points of Brunswick’s current government while allowing more direct citizen input and control over our future. In a nutshell, the proposed charter amendments would take all powers, duties, and responsibilities previously bestowed upon the hired City Manager and give them to a fulltime elected Mayor. City Council’s role as the legislative body would remain the same with the exception that they would no longer hire and supervise a City Manager and the Mayor would become the executive branch. Having a Mayor who can act independently gives Brunswick’s government the checks and balances that it lacks when a part-time Council serves as both the legislative and executive branches of our government.

So, if the job itself will remain substantially unchanged, what difference does it make whether it’s done by a City Manager or a Mayor?

Supporters of a City Manager form of government will tell you that a City Manager is the better choice because City Managers are professionals educated in a field relating to municipal management. Taken strictly at face value this theory sounds great. Just hire someone with a good education and a good work record and you’re all set. But let’s look a little deeper at what the City Manager form of government lacks and what strengths an elected Mayor would possess that a City Manager would not.

By stressing the education and professionalism of City Managers, proponents of that form seem to imply that elected Mayors are somehow less professional and less educated. Occasionally elected officials at all levels of government may behave badly, and professionals in the private sector may also. But if you look at communities throughout Northeast Ohio you will find that elected Mayors not only act professionally but also work hard promoting the cities they were elected to represent. The educational backgrounds of these Mayors vary widely, showing that a degree in any specific field is not a necessity for success.

A City Manager’s expertise in municipal management is most beneficial in the kind of community that Brunswick was thirty years ago. When the City Manager form of government was adopted, the city administration was extremely small and the city required an administrator who could wear a different hat every day. Since the early ‘70’s the administration has improved to include department heads and supervisors who are experts in many fields: law, finance, safety services, community development, etc. The education and training of a City Manager is often redundant, duplicating the skills and training of other city employees.

Brunswick does not need an individual who can do it all, we need an individual who can represent us all. It is not education and training that is lacking in Brunswick. What is missing is the full-time presence of a leader chosen by the voters in the community and who is solely responsible to the voters of the community.

City Managers are almost always hired from outside of the area, often from outside the state. The only information and impressions that they have about our community comes from City Council during the interview process or research they conduct themselves before accepting the position. Five to eight years is the average length of time that a City Manager stays in one place, then they move on.

An elected Mayor will have lived in Brunswick before being elected and will probably continue to live here when their term is up. Having been a part of the community, mayoral candidates are already personally familiar with the issues, the problems, the thoughts and feelings of the people who live here.

Supporters of City Manager government will tell you that the voters do control the position of the City Manager because they elect City Council. All you have to do is look at the processes of hiring and firing a City Manager to see that the voters have no control at all.

Not only does a new City Manager come to Brunswick with a limited amount of information about our city, but the residents have very limited information about a new City Manager. Resumes submitted for the position are public record, but all other aspects of the hiring process are conducted in a closed executive session of Council. There are no minutes and members of the public and the press are excluded. There is absolutely no room in the process for public input. It is common for City Councils to hire recruiters to help with the process of selecting a City Manager. 

So, we have seven Council people in a closed room, hiring a company from outside the community to help them hire an individual from outside the community to come in and act as the city’s chief administrative officer. City Council is not truly acting on behalf of the voters when the voters are intentionally excluded from the hiring process.

By contrast, in an election for Mayor, thousands and thousands of people have their chance to vote for the candidate of their choice. Not only are the candidates for Mayor already familiar with Brunswick, but by Election Day the voters are very familiar with the candidates. Throughout the election process candidates have ample time to tell voters what they plan to do if they are elected. Voters go to the voting booth knowing exactly how each candidate stands on the different issues facing the city.

By choosing a candidate whose plans for Brunswick’s future most closely match our own ideas, we as voters control the direction of the city’s growth and development. By choosing a candidate with good judgment and managerial skills, we as voters control how well our city departments function and the quality of services that they provide. And by choosing a candidate whose morals and values we respect, we as voters control the image our city presents to the rest of the world.

Even with the most responsive and competent Council members possible, the process of hiring a City Manager takes away from the voters the power and control they would have if they could go to the polls and vote for the candidate of their choice.

Once voters have elected the candidate of their choice, that individual is in office for four years. Every four years that individual must run for re-election and the voters have an opportunity to evaluate both the past performance of the incumbent and the ideas and plans of the challenging candidate.

A City Manager serves without a contract or term limit. When Brunswick’s City Council has conducted performance reviews of the City Manager, they have chosen to use a closed executive session where no members of the public or press are allowed to attend and there is no written documentation of these reviews. Under the public records act you can go to City Hall and request copies of the performance review of any city employee. Except the City Manager. Nothing has ever been put down in writing so the citizens have no idea how our elected Council people have felt about the performance of the city’s highest paid employee.

Supporters of a City Manager form of government say that it is better to have a City Manager because Council can remove the City Manager from office at any time they choose, without having to wait for a term to end. And it is absolutely true that at any time Council could vote to remove the City Manager. All they need is for five of the seven Council members to vote in favor of removing the City Manager. That’s good for Council, but what if voters want a City Manager removed from office?

They will tell you that voters can elect Council people who will remove the City Manager. But it takes five votes of Council to remove a City Manager and each individual voter can only vote for four council people, one ward and three at large, so it is impossible to personally elect enough Council members to remove the City Manager.

And if voters successfully elect Council members who are receptive to change, they must then go to those Council people with hat in hand and tell them what they want. An individual wanting a change must go to Council and say "I thing we need a new City Manager." They’re going to ask you why. And then you will have to explain why; justify your request. It is absolutely impossible for some people to do this.

Some are simply shy or they are hesitant to contact their elected officials, these people have no voice. A lot of people are afraid, "If I complain they might raise my property taxes, might not give me a permit for my home improvement, I might be bothered by the police." It doesn’t matter if these fears are valid or if these things will really happen. What matters is that people have these fears. And because they have them, they have no voice. Business owners may not speak out against a City Manager because they fear losing permits, fear having more inspections, fear not having site plans approved. Again, it does not matter whether these things would really happen, all that matters is these business owners might fear that it could happen and they then have no voice. City employees and their families may not ask for a change in City Managers because they fear losing their jobs or being harassed at work. These people have no voice.

I have never had anyone tell me that they were afraid to go vote. When you go to vote, your vote is anonymous. There can be no repercussions. You do not have to tell anyone how you voted; you do not have to explain or justify why you voted the way you did. And everyone’s vote counts the same, no one opinion can be given more weight than another.

When we elect a Mayor, the candidate with the most votes wins. Majority rules. When Council votes to remove a City Manager, it is possible for the minority of Council to be in control. It takes five votes of Council to remove a City Manager. If just three of the seven Council people refuse to remove the City Manager then it is this minority that rules. A City Manager that keeps just three Council members supporting him cannot be removed from office by anyone, not even by the vote of 35,000 citizens. That would be an approval rating of .00008%. In contrast, an elected Mayor must keep the majority of the voters happy to stay in office.

Selecting a form of government isn’t about educational or work experience requirements. It isn’t about Skip Trimble or Mike Hanes. Skip has retired and there would be a new election for the fulltime position of Mayor. Selecting a form of government is about establishing checks and balances so that no one individual or small group has too much control. It’s about giving the voters in Brunswick the right to elect the candidate of their choice to the city’s most powerful and highest paid position. We don’t expect Congress to hire a President, we elect the President. We don’t ask our state representatives to hire a Governor, we elect a Governor. And there is no reason why we should allow City Council to hire a City Manager when a Strong-Mayor form of government would allow us to elect a Mayor of our own choosing.