Mayors Move to Power in California City Halls

Who runs City Hall? Not long ago, that would have been an easy question. With the exception of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego, California municipalities were run by strong city managers hired by relatively weak city councils. The ceremonial mayor’s job was rotated among members of the council, and few elected officials considered themselves full-time politicians.

But now there’s a new boss at City Hall. Old-fashioned city managers are rapidly becoming extinct. Although the chemistry differs from community to community, medium-sized and larger cities are increasingly being led by high-profile mayors elected directly by the people following highly contested and expensive political campaigns.

Every year, more cities switch from rotation to direct election of the mayor, and others are giving their mayors more power through charter amendment. Salaries of local elected officials are growing, high enough so that many mayors and council members no longer hold private-sector jobs.

In some communities, the transfer of power is swift and dramatic. In the Silicon Valley city of Santa Clara, Donald R. Von Raesfeld served as city manager for 29 years and exercised virtually complete control over municipal government--until he came into conflict with a new-breed mayor, Everett N. (Eddie) Souza.

Rather than accept a de facto demotion, Von Raesfeld resigned. But he didn’t just disappear into a low-profile job in private enterprise. Instead, he ran successfully for a post on the Santa Clara City Council, where he can do battle with Souza as a peer instead of an employee.

In Carmel and Palm Springs, the show-biz notoriety of Clint Eastwood and Sonny Bono dramatized the increased potency of the mayor’s position.

But in most cities, the change of command is gradual and citizens aren’t even aware that local government is undergoing a significant alteration.

That’s the case in Fresno, where the new mayor, one-time TV anchor and former City Council member Karen Humphrey, is a supporter of the traditional council-manager form of government. Because of this system, “California has a long and honored history of efficient, well-managed city government,” she said. But whether Humphrey likes it or not, the residents of Fresno are looking to her and not the city manager to run City Hall.

Humphrey takes office with a salary of $49,000 a year, compared with her predecessor’s $25,000--an increase she opposed as a member of the City Council. She is attempting to pull off a delicate balancing act, describing Fresno’s municipal government as “the strong-mayor form of the weak-mayor system.” Humphrey said she realizes that citizens are looking toward elected officials rather than hired hands to solve problems. “I can’t say that four or eight years from now--or even one--I won’t favor the strong-mayor system,” she added.

As a council member, Humphrey worked full time at her elected position. Typical of the new breed of council member, she became involved in day-to-day operations of city government. Privately some managers complain that elected officials are “micromanaging” city departments, clearly stepping over the line from policy to management. Humphrey concedes “some meddling gets attempted” and believes that a skilled mayor can act as a buffer between the council and the manager. The full-time council members, she contends, gain an increased knowledge about city problems and thus can make more informed policy decisions.

The trend in larger cities is toward the Los Angeles-San Francisco model, with the mayor preparing the budget and having veto power over actions of the legislative body. That arrangement, for example, is being recommended by a citizens’ commission for the proposed consolidation of Sacramento city and county government.

Those who follow local-government trends in California claim the citizenry is mainly responsible for the rise of the mayors. “The public is concerned about being able to hold someone responsible for his or her actions,” said Don Benninghoven, executive director of the League of California Cities. “The new breed of mayor shows leadership in the community. Tom McEnery of San Jose is the prototype. He’s very able and he’s out front on every major city project. He wants to take all the credit for what the city accomplishes, and he’ll take the blame for the failures.”

A decade or two ago, most California mayors and councilmen rarely intended to pursue political careers. They spent no more than a few hundred dollars running for office, generally stayed away from City Hall except on meeting days, were content to serve one or two years as mayor and then fade out of public life.

Now local office is seen as the first rung on the political ladder and the cost of local campaigns is soaring. More than $1 million was spent in the last mayor’s race in Sacramento; Humphrey and her main opponent spent $500,000, by far the most in the history of Fresno. Mayors emerge from these elections with healthy egos that will hardly be satisfied under the old-fashioned form of government.

Competition between cities for economic investment also helps explain the rise of the mayors, according to Kenneth J. Emanuels, a Sacramento lobbyist and former legislative director for the League of Cities. Mayors are much more suited to warfare over economic development than councils and managers, he said, and the battle has been fierce in the last few years.

Mayors may also have become stronger and councils weaker because of the trend toward the district election of council members. The mayor now is often the only member of the council with a communitywide constituency while council members must serve as ombudsmen for their districts.

With growth the central issue in most cities, the decision-making process has undergone a significant change. Land developers often meet individually with the mayor and council members to line up a majority vote even before the formal application process is initiated. This brand of politics has long been commonplace in the state Capitol but it is fairly new to local government because old-time city managers wouldn’t have put up with it.

Where has all this left the city managers? In Wild West terms, they are no longer the chief scouts charting the way for the cavalry. They are back at the rear, running the grub wagons. In some cities, the elected officials have voted themselves full-time aides, who can and do challenge budgets and other proposals from the manager.

The final blow to the council-manager system is expected to be struck by the courts--an end to nonpartisan local elections in California. Under current California law, political parties are prohibited from participating formally in local elections and ballots are free of all partisan designations.

But recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have held that restrictions on political parties constitute illegal restraints on the right of free speech. One case authorized California parties to endorse candidates in primary elections; local government officials expect the ban on partisan local elections to be lifted the next time the issue reaches the courts. The degree to which partisanship will then dominate a city election will depend on the political makeup of each community.

The disintegration of the council-management form of government is likely to continue. Benninghoven believes a reversal of the strong-mayor trend is about as likely as an end to the initiative process: “They’re both here to stay and there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”