Most of the operation and executive decision in a city is done by the city manager, not the mayor. Is the mayor just a ceremonial post?
I live in Portland, Maine. Many other towns in Maine have similar arrangements. It might work differently elsewhere. For many years, the mayor of Portland was chosen by the city council, not the voters, and basically served as council chair. In 2011, we started electing our mayors, and they were out in the public more.
it depends. Cities can have different forms of government. larger cities tend to have a strong mayor/council government, where the mayor is the executive and the council is the legislature. Examples being NYC, LA, Chicago, Detroit, etc. Smaller cities usually have a council-manager government where the mayor is a ceremonial title; the mayor might be considered the “head” of the city council but he/she has no specific powers.
Many years ago, mayors tended to be so corrupt or such tools of political bosses that good government associations (vulgarly described as “goo-goos”) tried to move the actual running of the city into the hands of supposedly professional and non-partisan city managers.
Many years ago, but not quite so many, cities discovered that having an anonymous manager was a liability compared to a politically-minded mayor who could get the various factions and neighborhoods and politicians to work together to actually get things done.
There’s no good answer. Running a city is a mostly impossible job. There’s never enough money, either because the city is shrinking but the remaining people need more services or because the city is growing and services always lag behind. Imagine all the idiocy found here on the Dope and then apply that in the real world about real world problems. In addition, people want somebody to be responsible for these problems even if the problem is broadly structural and not due to personal flaws. Mostly, though, the old political machines disappeared and so the reasons for not having machine mayors disappeared too.
Rochester, NY has been through this. We were an early city to get a city manager. The mayor was a ceremonial position elected by the rest of the city council. Then the mayor started being elected. Shortly after that, the mayor became the head and the city manager was no more. Is everything better? No. The city is shrinking and there’s not enough money, although the past few years have seen some growth.
Now the mayor is like a governor or president. She (in our case) makes the big decisions about how the city functions. That’s what the city manager used to do. When I worked in city government under a city manager we department staff put together a $150 million budget. The city manager allowed the city council to publicly change about $50,000 worth of programs so that they could be said to do something. Now the mayor heads the budget process. It’s a thankless job, and she will get blamed for everything. Just like the President. You have to really want it.
The mayor of my grandparents’ small town in Arkansas was nice enough to have someone go take a photo of their grave when I requested it one time. Not sure the mayor of New York would do that, but I’d vote for this lady anytime.
Well, someone has to play the Mayor’s assistant on a TV show set in and named after your town.
I wonder what they would call a TV show set in the OP’s town.
I don’t live in Oregon.
I followed politics in my old home town in New Jersey. I’m pretty sure that the mayor proposed a city budget which would need to be approved by the city council. Also negotiated contracts with city workers, including police and fire. The mayor also helped to set a direction for the city regarding how much development was acceptable, how much park space was reasonable, how much to spend on infrastructure upgrades, etc. Some of the staff would actively seek state and federal grants to help pay for park or infrastructure improvements. And photo ops, of course.
A brief overview of types of government.