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Stronger mayor idea dead, for now

Sharon Coolidge
scoolidge@enquirer.com
Councilman Christopher Smitherman

The conversation about changing how much power the Cincinnati mayor has is over – at least for now.

Polling showed citizens didn't support the idea, said Christopher Smitherman, the city councilman leading the effort to move Cincinnati from a city manager form of government to an executive mayor form of government.

"This isn't dead, just paused," Smitherman said. "We need to spend more time educating people." He continues to champion the idea, saying separating powers of the executive branch and legislative branch best serve citizens.

Under Smitherman's proposed form of city government the mayor would be the boss and council would oversee the money, but it would limit some mayoral powers.Veto power would remain under the proposal.

Smitherman said he'll revisit the idea in 2017, when the mayor and city council members are up for re-election.

A committee has spent a year reviewing the city charter, comparing Cincinnati's government to 17 other cities and studying how Cincinnati's charter has evolved.

A subcommittee of the citizen-led panel found the mayor has extraordinary power, more than was intended when Cincinnati voters amended the charter in 2002 to a create a hybrid "stronger-mayor" system in an effort to improve accountability.

No large urban city has a power structure like Cincinnati's. Most cities are governed by a council-manager system or a mayor-council system.

Recent decisions show just how much power the mayor has under the current form of government. In the past, the budget was passed as a whole. This year, Cranley used his referral authority to separate out seven items, allowing him to veto five of them, essentially creating a line-item veto. And when one Council committee refused to support a $35 million apartment development in Madisonville because it did not comply with neighborhood plans, Cranley moved it to another committee, where it passed to full Council.

Both were legitimate uses of power under the city's charter, but the decisions upset some Council members.

Smitherman said the proposed changes shouldn't be about any "personalities." The idea of changing the mayoral powers was one of many vetted by the Cincinnati Charter Review Task Force. Started by Councilman Kevin Flynn, that group's work is coming to a close.

Recommendations from that group include:

• Eliminating the mayor's pocket veto powers, meaning the mayor must assign all legislative matters to a Council committee within 14 days. Now, the mayor can hold items indefinitely, effectively killing them.

• Giving Council the power to initiate firing the city manager. The firing would require votes from six members of Council or five members of Council, plus the mayor. Now only the mayor has the power to initiate it. Mike Morgan, a former Clifton Heights resident now living in Newport, who led the group, said the change is not intended to make it easier to fire the city manager, but to clarify that the manager is autonomous and equally services both the mayor and city council.

• Giving Council limited executive session powers. Ohio law allows government bodies to meet in private on issues related to litigation. Cincinnati's charter does not allow the majority of Council to meet behind closed doors.

• Moving the mayoral primary election from September to May and the start date for mayoral and City Council terms from Dec. 1 to Jan. 1 to comply with election recount requirements. This would save taxpayers money.

• Allowing city employees to work or donate to political campaigns, except for those involving city elections. Now all campaign support is forbidden, which has been found expressly unconstitutional.

Six members of Council must agree to put a charter amendment on these matters to voters in November. Council is expected to discuss the amendment at their August meeting.

"I think these ideas will make a significant, substantive, positive change without any radical change to our form of government," Morgan said. "We didn't have to blow up the entire government to fix what was fundamentally dysfunctional."

Not among the recommendations?

How Council is elected. There had been discussion about at least some members being elected from wards or geographically. Morgan said the committee believes the conversation should continue, but that it should be citizen-driven.

The task force couldn't agree on a change and those who wanted change couldn't come to a consensus.

MAYORAL POWERS NOW & HOW THEY WOULD CHANGE

Currently the mayor:

• Refers all legislation. The mayor can withhold issues from the agenda so they are never heard, what's often referred to as a pocket veto.

• Appoints committee chairs.

• The mayor is the first official to recommend the appointment and removal of a city manager, though city council must approve of the hiring or firing of a city manager. Some say this effectively makes the mayor the manager's boss.

Under Smitherman's proposal:

• The office of the city manager would be eliminated. The mayor would hire department heads such as police and fire chiefs; department chiefs would report to the mayor.

• Council would then organize itself, selecting its own president. That person would control the agenda and who chairs which committees.

• Council would control spending.

• The mayor would still be required to attend City Council meetings.

Under both scenarios, the mayor retains veto power.