The Observation Deck

I read with interest the story in the Sept. 6 Observer by Lakewood resident and CSU Professor Dr. Larry Keller, entitled "Time for a Change", which recommends adopting a City Manager form of government in Lakewood.

In effect, this would replace Lakewood's mayor with a hired professional executive known as a City Manager--a city CEO. The Council would remain as a "Board" to set overall policy and review the City Manager's decisions.

Keller presents a thoughtful and well-developed case, arguing, "in the face of increasing challenges, Lakewood must improve government" by "Professionalizing government." Keller asserts that "It is doubtful that election can secure the necessary skills and experience needed for an effective municipal executive," leading to the conclusion: "In light of the growing challenges facing the city, we have simply outgrown the dated system of electing a mayor. "

If you accept Keller's skepticism that democratic elections can produce good results (e.g. effective leadership in government), his conclusion is reasonable. Keller's recommendation falls into a tradition of aristocracy--or at least meritocracy. The idea is to be clear-eyed and realistic about the limitations of popular elections and semi-informed choices made by voters busy earning a living and raising their families.

In this vein, Churchill commented that democracy is the worst system, except for all the others. (Democracy *does* have so many shortcomings, it *is* the worst system... except for...) Going back further in history, the ancient Greek historian Thucydides wrote crictically of the rash decisions made by the Athenian populace that led to its downfall. Plato, likewise, opted instead, for a government by the "best" and most wise, describing leadership by an ideal philosopher-king.

The other view is what might be termed the "Lakewood Observer school"--to have faith in the democratic system, or at least a greater distrust of "all the others". While the shortcomings of democracy and imperfect decisions by voters must be acknowledged, we can work to improve democracy by improving the community and its citizens. Socrates accomplished this through dialogue; the Lakewood Observation Deck is doing the same; and the crowd-sourced* (see below) news content of the Lakewood Observer further engages Lakewood citizens in creating, not just consuming, our community. This leads to better, more-informed decisions by Lakewood voters and better results from our democratic elections.

As an "Observerite", I’m not yet ready to give up on democracy and support a City Manager system. Instead, I’ll invest my energies into improving our community dialogue, into inspiring faith in our own ability to make our own decisions, into inspiring belief in Lakewood’s ability to overcome Lakewood’s challenges. Lakewood’s well of citizen talent and citizen ingenuity is deep and rich.

Nonetheless I applaud Dr. Keller for opening this discussion and respect both the points he makes and the conclusions he draws about them.

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Links:

Observer Story, "Time for a Change": Can't find the link. Jim or DL, can you help out?

Current City Charter: http://www.lkwdpl.org/city/charter/

Report recommending changes to current city charter: [url]
http://www.lkwdpl.org/city/CharterSummaryandChanges.pdf[/url]

Section by section comparison of Current Charter with Revised
Charter with Council-Manager Charter: [url]
http://www.lkwdpl.org/city/CharterComparison.pdf[/url][/i]

Crowd-Sourcing: see http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html

An additional comment:

There is a third tradition of democracy, the McDonald's School, whose Father is neither Thucydides nor Socrates but rather Pavlov's dog: i.e. we neither take away power from citizens nor work to improve them, but rather condition them through sheer repetition to acquiesce to our message.

Does a McDonald's commercial appeal to your reason, your emotions, or your appetites? Or does it coerce you through brute force of repetition?

In a state of 11 million citizens and a nation of 300 million, we haven't been relying on neighbor-to-neighbor conversations but rather mass-media advertising and soundbyte-driven info-tainment.

So, when people express dissatisfaction (as they have on this Deck) with timidity of candidates' public platforms, they should not imagine corruption but rather look to the constraints of the Rules of the New Game, Mass Media politics. Candidates ignore these at their peril (per John Kerry, "I voted for it before I voted against it").

Fortunately, Lakewood is a human-sized community. Here in our hometown, we ought to be able to pull off some honest-to-goodness democracy.

Tom,

I see no sacrifice of democracy in a Council/Manager form of government. A City Manager would be hired by the seven ELECTED City Council members. The manager would manage, not govern.

Policy would be set by our ELECTED City Council.

More than half of the municipalities in the U.S. have this form of government with no threat to democracy.

Steve

Would this ultimately make a difference? The appeal of the idea is that a hired gun isn't so beholden to the party goons. Usually they make up for this by thinking in terms of buzz words and slogans, and generally making few positive changes. Picture the Cleveland Public Schools Administration or President Bush's Cabinet.

The Cleveland Public Schools Administration is not the best example of democracy in action. I don't think Cleveland Schools even have an elected School Board anymore. Someone else can correct me on this.

I'm not sure Cleveland Schools, or the Bush Aministration are relevant to this discussion, other than serving as less than stellar examples of democracy.

What is relevant is discussion about efficient delivery of city services by professional management, as defined by seven elected officials and the voters.

The city took over the schools in Cleveland a long time ago. They do not have the traditional elected school board.

Someone told me that Cleveland schools may rank last, but they have improved 50% over last year!!!!!!!!!!!! And attendance is up 200%!!!

Doug

I am not sure that voting for a City Manager form of government would be "giving up democracy." As noted, a City Manager is hired by elected officials, just like other positions in the city administration. I don't know much about the system but I would love to see politics removed from the day to day operation of the city.

A person would be hard pressed to convince me that any typical politician can see further than the end of his or her term in office. So when projects require patience and time, a politician (and an electorate) with little of both won't be as willing to play the long game with certain issues. Meaning things are either rushed or not done at all because no result can be seen in 1-4 years. A city manager would weather out the whims of political plays of the Council and will see them come and go and as long as s/he is doing a good job there is a good chance they will remain there.

I want to do more reading on this topic and would love to hear or read good comparisons between both methods. What system is better for our particular needs at this particular time? Maybe a City Manager system is better for smaller suburbs vs. larger cities? Maybe it is a better system to build this city back up and not squabble over the few scraps left. Who knows. But I think it is a discussion worth having.

Phil

Hi,
One question: Is the City Manager required to be a citizen of Lakewood?

If you say no, then I must say no to the idea of City Manager. I want someone running our City that sleeps here at night and faces life as us Lakewood citizens do.

If you say yes, then I say run your candidate for City Manager for the Office of Mayor. No change needed.

PS. Lakewood had a prior Mayor that did some bad things. Lakewood citizens voted her out of office. I don't see how Lakewood citizens could vote out a bad City Manager as easily.

ryan costa wrote:Would this ultimately make a difference? The appeal of the idea is that a hired gun isn't so beholden to the party goons. Usually they make up for this by thinking in terms of buzz words and slogans, and generally making few positive changes. Picture the Cleveland Public Schools Administration or President Bush's Cabinet.

Ryan

There are many constants, one is we all serve someone, the same is true for a City Manager and the Mayor.

To me this is al;ways one of those questions that really get me thinking. While it is easy to see why a cioty with a $75 million dollar budget needs "professional management" look at the threads that cross through the observation deck forming the fabric of Lakewood.

Some of those asking for City Manager, also are asking for their to be incentives for City Employess to live here. Would the city manager be from here? If he were to move here, how would we bring him up to speed on our indocyncracies? Would he feel the same love and affection for Lakewood, that Mayor George does who grew up here, and continues to live in the heart of Lakewood?

But we always come back to your question/statement, and my answer. We all gotta server someone.

You may be an ambassador to England or France
You may like to gamble, you might like to dance
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Might be a rock'n' roll adict prancing on the stage
Might have money and drugs at your commands, women in a cage
You may be a business man or some high degree thief
They may call you Doctor or they may call you Chief.

But you're gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed
You're gonna have to serve somebody,
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody.

Bob Dylan



.

I would love to see politics removed from the day to day operation of the city.

For better or worse, this is very likely impossible--whether in Lakewood, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, the world. Kind of like achieving true "objectivity", or in physics the theoretical "frictionless pulley". Jim/Bob Dylan is saying this far more eloquently than I.

The best we can do is be open and honest about our bias, then work with others in a spirit of goodwill and do our best to embrace our differences.

A City Manager form of government may be a good idea, or it may not be--but either way, it won't remove politics from politics. It'll just change the rules of the game, create new winners and losers, create different pressure points and bottlenecks.

This is a great discussion.

I wonder if this would happen in the event Lakewood moved to a City Manager government: The money the two main parties had spent running their mayoral candidates is then added to the campaign budgets of council candidates, who vie to control who the next City Manager will be.

Ryan,

In spite of party spending, we will still have choices for City Council. Lakewood recently voted overwhelmingly in favor of non-partisan elections. Without that, I may not have been able to vote for Tom George against Madeline Cain in the last mayoral election. We had two Democrats in that race. Party endorsement has a little less impact in that scenario.

I am a Democrat, and while Democrats would appear to be the majority, we have to remember that about two thirds of Lakewood voters are not registered with any party.

Even though my mayor of choice is currently in office, I still think Lakewood citizens should investigate and give serious consideration to changing the mechanics of our city government.

Steve

Steve is right. Lakewood has overwhelmingly supported the idea of getting politics out of city government. As for losing our elected representation, a city manager model will strengthen that relationship.

The citizens of Lakewood are often the losers in the battle between the Mayor and Council. By streamlining that relationship, the line of accountability is clearly defined. I like my chances of getting good elected representative leadership by electing 4 out of 7 council members. Instead of 1 out of 2 administrators available locally, my representatives will have the responsibility of looking nationally for a high quality administrator that has the education and experience to successfully manage a city with the budget and challenges of Lakewood. If that person should fail or be inadequate, I know exactly who to look to - the City Council.

Tax dollars are tax dollars, whether they are spent for schools, libraries or city services, what we require is an administrator who can be easily held accountable and a governing board that is responsible.

It really is "Lakewood's Time".

While the idea of moving to a manager/council form of government is an interesting prospect, there are several critical qualifications that have not yet been addressed.

The idea that goverment should be molded to operate more like a business has not, to my knowledge, been thuroughly vetted. This concept runs counter to Dr. Keller's vision for a city manager system in Lakewood, which is grounded in the writing and implementation of sound public policy by our elected officials, as stewards of democratic institutions.

Yet, it must be acknowledged, and I believe Dr. Keller will concur, that there is a strong current of thought/theory/practice within the City Manager university programs preparing/credentialing such candidates that places a heavy emphasis on private sector intervention in the form of selling off muni assets, privitization of public goods/services, and managing a government like a business rather than a democratic institution. Whereby citizen becomes consumer, and municipal government's ability to control the goods and services provided to citizens is weakened/complicated.

it is in private sector interest to MAXIMIZE profits, i.e. - redistribute wealth upwards.

In the interest of MAXIMIZING profits, once municipally controlled goods and services can now levy higher resale costs to citizens.... now you're a consumer of waste water treatment (monopoly good). If you have an issue with service or unreasonable cost increases...... wait on the "help line", an Indian speaking representative will be with you shortly.....

If you thought that a tax break was just over the horizon, watch for the increase on the private side. Now that your muni essentials have been drivin into the world of private profit, your ability to effect their management/quality/distribution/cost has been jepordized. Add to the removal of democratic control the fact that most of these goods/services will be monopolies in the first place, by their nature.

Dan,

I think you are confusing who makes policy and who implements policy. A City Manager is not going to privatize government services without the approval of his employers (City Council and voters.) and keep his/her job. Conversly, the same City Manager should be prepared to do so, if that would be the mission given by his/her employers (City Council and voters.).

You can make up all the doomsday scenarios you want, but there are many models available to us to indicate that this proposed idea can work here. Locally, we have an ELECTED School Board that hires a Superintendent to manage our schools. He is an experienced, trained professional that works at the pleasure of the board and voters. They hired him. They can fire him. I don't think he could, say, privatize middle school education or sell off the footaball stadium against the will of the Board.

Although less common in Northeast Ohio, the Council/Manager form of government is working very well in other communities in Ohio. I don't have a list in front of me, but I can name several, including Kent, Mentor, Cleveland Heights, Upper Arlington, Dublin, Worthington, Westerville, Dayton, Centerville, and all but one of the municipalities in Hamilton County, including Cincinnati.

Larry is not offering a panacea, but a reasonable solution to the question, "What happens if our best and brightest don't step up to run AFTER this mayor?"

Steve