Why
get rid of the city manager system that has served this community for over 100
years?
a. This isn't the same place it was 100 years
ago. Times have changed. Sandusky has grown. Sandusky has a sizable
minority population who don't feel they are being represented very well
at City Hall. Since the city manager is "insulated" from the public
because he does not have to run for office, he can ignore much of the public. As
long as he satisfies the white majority who elect most of the commissioners, his
job is secure.
b. Public relations is an
important function of the city that currently is not being handled very
well. Being good at public relations is part of becoming a mayor. Because a city
manager gets hired by the Commission, he never has to prove his ability with the
public to get the job.
c. I thought for a while that it might be better
just to "fix" our current system. After reading about this issue, I no
longer think that it is possible to do so. While hiring a really good city
manager would fix a great deal, there are too many
pitfalls with the current system. A city manager does not have the
backing of the public to make changes. His job is at the mercy of the City
Commission.
d. There are communities where the City Manager
system would probably work as well or better than the mayoral system. But those
communities are more homogeneous than Sandusky. We need to have a community
leader heading the city. Having better leadership is the biggest
advantage of having a mayor instead of a city manager.
e. If the Commission makes a bad choice when they
hire the city manager, it is much more difficult to get rid
of him than a mayor. Yeah, yeah, I know - the commission can
fire a city manager - that's got to be quicker and easier than getting rid of a
mayor. No, not really. The city manager that our commission did "get rid
of" wasn't fired. He resigned and was paid well to do so. What did it take
to get rid of him? Term limits and different commissioners. The residents of
Sandusky cannot fire a bad city manager. They are stuck with him until they can
either elect different commissioners or pressure the current ones into action.
Most people have a very difficult time firing someone. It is very difficult to
convince a majority of the commission to take action against a lousy employee.
Most of the commissioners may never have been in the position of having to
decide to fire someone before. A
mayor can be voted out or recalled - and we don't have to pay him well to get
rid of him.
f. Who got the bright idea that the city manager
has to have a degree in city management? Sounds
good on paper. The reality is it is a very bad idea.
The pool of qualified people with degrees in city management is small. The
number of people in our area with city management degrees is almost non-existent.
When we hire someone from another area to run our city, we are hiring someone
who may know nothing about Ohio. We expect him to move into our community and
immediately be loyal to our area. It is more likely that he views our community
as a stepping stone to an even better job. Someone with experience in running a
business and is from our area would be more loyal to the community, have more
knowledge about our area, and could do a better job of running the city. It
really makes no sense that someone with a doctorate degree in business and 25
years experience of running a large corporation would be considered unqualified
to be Sandusky's city manager because he lacked a degree in city
management. 
It makes much more sense to elect the top administrator of the city and hire an
assistant with a degree in government.....
g. But couldn't we elect a
mayor with poor qualifications? Yes, we could but I give
the citizens of Sandusky more credit than that.
h. But the Sandusky Register reported that most communities are switching to
a city manager system. - Not exactly so - according to Dr.
Rob Alexander, Ph.D. of Bowling
Green State University - "the clear trend over the
last decade and even since the late 1980s has been a movement
toward more Mayor forms of government."
2001
