Mayor–council government: Difference between revisions

Mayor–council government (edit)

Revision as of 15:05, 14 February 2022

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→‎Weak-mayor government form

Dhaneesh Ram

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 The weak-mayor form of government may be found in the United States, mostly in small towns that do not use the more popular [[Council–manager government|council–manager form]] used in most municipalities that are not considered large or major cities, and is frequently seen in small municipalities with few or no full-time municipal employees. By contrast, in Canada the weak-mayor system is popular even in large cities.{{citation needed|date=January 2021}}
+==Strong-mayor government form==
+The strong-mayor form of mayor–council government usually consists of a mayor elected by voters as the head of the [[executive branch]], and a [[Unicameralism|unicameral]] council as the legislative branch.<ref name="JSOTR">{{Cite journal |author1=Kathy Hayes |author2=Semoon Chang |date=July 1990 |title=The Relative Efficiency of City Manager and Mayor–Council Forms of Government |journal=Southern Economic Journal |volume=57 |issue=1 |pages=167–177 |doi=10.2307/1060487 |jstor=1060487}}</ref>
+In the strong-mayor form, the elected mayor is given almost total administrative authority and a clear, wide range of political independence, with the power to appoint and dismiss department heads without council approval or public input. In this system, the strong-mayor prepares and administers the city budget, although that budget often must be approved by the council. Abuses of this form{{examples|date=January 2021}} led to the development of the council–manager form of local government and its adoption widely throughout the United States.
+In some strong-mayor governments, the mayor will appoint a [[chief administrative officer]] who will supervise department heads, prepare the budget, and coordinate departments. This officer is sometimes called a [[city manager]]. While the term city manager is used in the council–manager form of municipal government, the manager in the strong-mayor variant is responsible only to the mayor.
+Most [[local government in the United States|major American cities]] use the strong-mayor form of the mayor–council system, whereas middle-sized and small American cities tend to use the council–manager system.<ref name="GIA">{{Cite book |author1=George C. Edwards III  |title=Government in America |author2=Robert L. Lineberry |author3=Martin P. Wattenberg |publisher=Pearson Education |year=2006 |isbn=0-321-29236-7 |pages=677–678}}</ref>
 == References ==