After the Charter Revision Commission shot down the idea of letting councilors giving themselves raises, a foot soldier sent me a copy of the Model City Charter (DOC – Pages 26 and 70).
The lead city attorney used this document to argue for commissioner Zylstra’s intent telling members that it was recommended in this model document.
Well guess what else the model legislation supports? They support a council and mayor have either a city manager or CAO (Chief Administrative Officer).
Basically this position runs the administrative side of the government, the council handles policy and all administrative appointments with the advice and consent of the mostly ceremonial mayor.
Most people don’t know it, but I would argue that the mayor’s COS (Chief of Staff) is currently managing the city without the knowledge or consent of the public.
If you actually implement this form of government, that person would be supervised by the council.
I found it ironic that the CRC would argue against a city manager or CAO during that proposal portion of the CRC process yet use this same document to argue for pay raises. Of course it got shot down just like the rest of the proposals, but after I started reading this document I wondered why the CRC wasn’t just referring to this document more often?
Unfortunately, I could not find any recommendations on what kind of accelerant to use when burning our current city charter.