The Portland Charter Commission has not demonstrated the need for an executive mayor.
Along with fellow commissioners Marpheen Chann and Dory Waxman, we believe the commission’s proposal goes too far, too fast, for the city of Portland.
Instead, we point to the work of the commission’s governance committee in the fall of 2021, which followed a thoughtful public process that included values mapping, interviews with former mayors and testimony from experts on municipal governance structure, former city managers and current and former city councilors.
This process included a professionally facilitated discussion of weaknesses in our current system and identified possible solutions. After a months-long public process, the governance committee decided against recommending an executive mayor. A subsequent workshop with several national experts on municipal governing structures highlighted that a strong mayor-council system is not necessarily more transparent and more accountable to voters than a council-manager or council-mayor-manager hybrid system. Unfortunately, the full commission discarded this good research and process and embarked on a drawn-out process of debating anecdotes and personal opinions of what should be done, in an atmosphere of self-reinforcing discussions with little regard to objective supporting information.
In addition to a lack of demonstrated need for an executive mayor, we are concerned about the risks of polarization between an executive mayor and council, and the possibility of undue political influence over the day-to-day operations of the city.
We believe the power to set policy and ordinances should rest solely with the democratically elected City Council, of which the mayor is currently a part, and that the implementation and administration of those policies and ordinances are within the realm of a competent and highly qualified public administrator and city staff. The governance proposal on the ballot would weaken our democratically elected legislative body, the City Council. The checks provided – namely, in the provisions outlining the removal of the mayor and a council override of the mayor’s firing of the chief operating officer – are more stylistic than substantive in nature. Furthermore, the increase in the number of councilors from nine to 12 means that seven councilors would be needed to pass any proposal, and eight to override a mayor’s veto, with a greater proportion of councilors representing individual districts rather than the city at-large – a formula for gridlock.
We also object to comparisons with neighboring Westbrook. Although the current mayor and administration appear to be doing well, Westbrook has faced high-profile instances of mayoral overreach and has a budget, city staff and population that is less than a third of Portland’s. We agree wholeheartedly with Westbrook City Administrator Jerre Bryant, who told us that what matters more when it comes to accountability and transparency in city government are the people elected and appointed, and not necessarily the structure and positions themselves.
We would have wholeheartedly supported the initial proposal from the governance committee, which many Portland citizens could have also gotten behind: (1) clarifying and strengthening the role of the mayor with regard to budgetary powers; (2) establishing a process for both the mayor and the council to develop and introduce policy proposals, and (3) establishing a process to allow for the mayor and the City Council to communicate with city staff to research and develop policy solutions. Unfortunately, this was not the option the full commission chose to forward to voters.
We encourage Portland voters to read our minority report in the Charter Commission’s Final Report to the City Council, available on the city’s website.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
