A Political Fiction

Lately, some local bloggers have been especially effusive in their praise of Carbondale Mayor Cole and the fact that he is such an active “full-time” mayor. Some call him “a real bargain” and “our Vista Volunteer” because he works full-time for a low salary.

For example, in regard to the upcoming election, David More argues for “voters to not to turn back the clock, and return to the days of the part-time Mayor . . . but to Spring forward with a full-time Mayor whose #1 job is making Carbondale a better place to live and work.”

Lost in all this admiration is the history of the City-manager form of government in Carbondale. The pundits miss the fact that the citizens of Carbondale legally chose to adopt the Council-manager form of government as a means of reforming the abuses of past municipal government systems. A full-time, partisan mayor is not an ingredient of the chosen reform.

Recall that there are three possible forms of municipal government. All three are found in southern Illinois. Most municipalities of communities with more than 10,000 citizens use either a mayor-council government (sometimes referred to as the strong-mayor form of government), a council-manager government (E.G. Carbondale), or the once prevalent, but now generally disfavored, city commission form of local government (E.G. Marion).

In the council-manager form of city government, mayors typically are part-time jobs because the council delegates authority to administer the details of government not to the mayor, but to the City Manager. The mayor is normally supposed to primarily perform ceremonial duties and act as a member and presiding officer of the elected city council that sets policy and gives the manager direction.

That is the way the voters approved the governance system for Carbondale and the way things worked well for decades before the current mayor took office. Historically, the Carbondale City Manager (currently Jeff Dougherty) has looked to trade organizations such as the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) for guidance on how to administer government in a non-partisan manner. The ICMA publishes eighteen best practices of operation for professional city managers.

Despite the many good intentions and efforts that Mayor Cole has, I suspect that there is an aversion in the community to the bloodless Coup d'état that seems to have occurred in city hall. The mayor’s position was never intended to be a full-time position. Taxpayers pay the City Manager a very hefty salary to professionally administer the affairs of city government without the need for the heavy hand of a full-time Mayor residing in city hall all day, every day. It is irrelevant that the mayor is willing to serve full-time or at low pay. That is simply not what the voters agreed to support.

Mayor Cole says he is running for office to be a full-time mayor. His opponent has clearly stated that she is running for the part-time office of mayor in keeping with the traditional council-manager form of government. In essence, they are running for different offices, but one of the offices is a fiction and does not exist.

This is not to say the mayor’s role should be marginalized. To the contrary, elected mayors are very important because they can use the “bully pulpit” to resolve divisive community issues and help lead a community to new solutions and opportunities.

There is a very real danger in supporting the continuation of a low-salary, full-time mayor position, especially when the person has sworn allegiance to one political party. First of all, it is a step backwards from the desired goal of professionalizing municipal administration by having a CEO-level administrator responsible for running government in a non-partisan manner. In the case of Mayor Cole, he is an avowed Republican with statewide political aspirations. This alone hinders his impartially when it comes to representing a non-partisan city administration, and makes all his actions (good or bad) suspect when he acts independent of Council direction or authority. Moreover, since “perception is reality,” any act the Republican mayor takes will be deemed partisan behavior with political overtones.

A second danger of a full-time, partisan mayor is that city employees will always feel either real or imagined pressure to operate in a partisan manner for the sake of job security, promotions and raises. With an non-partisan city manager stationed between the employee and the elected body of council decision-makers, employees have greater freedom to professionally act for what they see as best for the city, rather than what is preferred by any in-the-house, full-time, partisan mayor.