IRVINE : Mayor Will Request Changes to Charter

Fulfilling a campaign pledge, Mayor Sally Anne Sheridan tonight will try to start undoing a 1987 ballot measure that calls for the direct election of the city’s mayor.

Sheridan, Irvine’s second directly elected mayor, will ask City Council members to approve a City Charter amendment that would return the job of filling the largely symbolic position to the City Council.

Her proposal also calls for the city election date to be moved from June of even-numbered years to November.

If the council approves Sheridan’s request, the proposed charter amendment would go before Irvine voters this November. Electing a mayor creates the impression that the position carries a great amount of authority, Sheridan said.

“I’m sitting in the seat now, and the amount of perceived power that individual has in this system is awesome,” she said. “I think it can be destructive to the city manager form of government.”

Irvine, like most Orange County cities, is run on a day-to-day basis by a city manager hired by the council, which makes major policy decisions. Having a directly elected mayor creates an illusion that the mayor wields more power over the city than does a regular member of the council, Sheridan said.

By returning selection of the mayor to the way it was before 1987, she said, the city also would solve problems created by Measure D. Voters approved Measure D in 1988 to spell out an alternate process of replacing a council member who runs for mayor and wins, leaving an unexpired seat on the council.

A lawsuit and legal wrangling over how to interpret Measure D have cost the city $163,000.

“It’s been a fiasco,” Sheridan said Monday.

A 1987 law said the council opening would be filled by the runner-up in the City Council race. But Measure D added a proviso that if residents could gather signatures from 7% of the city’s registered voters, the position would be filled through a special election.

Sheridan’s proposed charter amendment would delete Measure D.

If approved, the charter changes would begin with the November, 1992, election, leaving Sheridan as mayor for the next two years. Two council seats set to expire in July, 1992, would have their terms lengthened five months because of the change in the election date.

Larry Agran, whom Sheridan defeated for the mayoral post last month, supported the measure to have an elected mayor. He said that it would eliminate the back-room politicking among council members and that it would make the mayor more accountable to voters.

Instead, Sheridan said, Agran used the seat to try to wield more power over city administrators.