The mayor-council form of government is the better choice for Covington
Written by current Covington Mayor Joseph U. Meyer
Over my eight years as mayor, I’ve been privileged to work with great commissioners and great staff to advance the interests of the city of Covington. We have a record to be proud of: unprecedented economic growth throughout the city, lowered property tax rates, a much improved Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project, long term storm water issues being addressed, a new city hall under construction, the redevelopment of the IRS site is underway, national and even international recognition for the city’s accomplishments, and so much more.
We have accomplished that record, together, despite the structure of our government, not because of it. We have struggled with unclear lines of accountability, complicated internal communications, and inefficiency that is intrinsic to the city manager form of government.
The inefficiencies of our system haven’t gone unnoticed. Covington residents organized Covington Forward and collected thousands of signatures to allow Covington voters to decide on November 5 whether to replace the city manager form of government with the mayor-council form. They deserve our thanks.
Our city needs a structure that will support the city’s continued improvement. The residents, like I, believe the best way to keep the city’s momentum going is to adopt the mayor-council form of government. All the current elected members of the Board of Commissioners support the change. They have experienced the uncertainty of the city manager structure and know we can do better.
The mayor-council form of government is familiar to us. Of the 26 cities in Northern Kentucky over 1000 population 23 use the mayor-council form. Independence, Florence, Erlanger, Fort Thomas, Fort Mitchell, Fort Wright, Villa Hills, Park Hills, all use the mayor-council form. The largest cities in Kentucky, Louisville and Lexington, use a variation of the mayor-council form for their merged city county governments. The county fiscal courts use a version of the mayor-council form. The federal and state governments use a version of the mayor-council form of government. The city manager form of government is the outlier, used in Kentucky by just a handful of cities.
The advantages of the mayor-council form of government are straightforward:
• More Responsive to the Public. The city manager isn’t directly accountable to voters. The mayor in a mayor-council form is. When mistakes are made, theft of city money, for example, or bad financial audits, the mayor has to answer directly to the public at election time. The mayor will also be accountable to the city council. In fact, the city council can remove a mayor from office for egregious errors. City managers have built in job protection and cannot be fired without a lengthy legal process that takes a lot of time, attention and money.
• There is a clear chain of command in the mayor-council form. Who’s actually the boss under the city manager form of government? The city manager? Not really. The mayor? No. The Board of Commissioners, yes, but not really. The city manager will say s/he has five bosses, all asking for different things, so how can s/he decide? The public already knows how difficult it is to find the right party in city government to talk to about problems or suggestions. The city employees know about the “rule of three”. Under the mayor-council form, all of the city staff, including the city administrator (manager) will have one boss, not five. I believe that even city managers will have a sigh of relief when they have but one clearly identified boss to report to.
• Vastly improved efficiency: In the last eight years over 91% of all the decisions of the Covington Commission have involved executive functions. The city manager form requires that the board of commissioners approve everything in both its legislative capacity and its executive capacity. In its legislative capacity the commission approves the budget. Then in its executive capacity the commission has to approve the implementation of the budget, the purchase of equipment or contracts that they already approved in the budget, for example. Every personnel action, from hiring to promotion to transfers to resignation to retirements must be approved by the city commission. In my eight years there was but one of hundreds of personnel recommendations from the professional administration that was not approved by the commission. This slows down the decision making process, costs a lot of staff time and money, introduces unnecessary risk into the hiring process and reduces the amount of time the commission spends on items important to the city’s residents. In the mayor-council form all those executive decisions will be handled by the mayor and administration in the normal course of business, subject to review by the city council for compliance with the council’s budget and policy determinations.
• More representation: the city commission will grow from four to at least six members. More residents will be elected decision makers and have the opportunity to raise the concerns of their fellow city residents. The councilmembers will focus on the issues important to the citizens, public policy, budget, and oversight of executive function without the conflict of interest inherent in the city manager form of government.
• Clear Leadership: The mayor will shift from being the ceremonial leader to being a clearly identified leader who can speak and act on behalf of the city. Under the current form of government I am officially a ceremonial leader with no actual authority to speak on behalf of the city government -Yes, I have to be very careful when I speak, even to the President of the United States or the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation or the Governor. In todays’ world it is important that the mayor have the actual authority to speak on behalf of the city with governors, state officials and even presidents and national officials, and other regional leaders. The mayor under the mayor-council will have that authority.
It is significant that the majority of the former Covington city commissioners and mayors still in this area and a former city manager have endorsed the change. They know from experience the current system is broken and needs change. They believe the mayor-council form will be better.
Outside organizations that have looked into the change have all endorsed it: The Latonia Business Association, The Covington Business Council, the Northern Kentucky Labor Council, the NAACP, and the chairs of the democratic and republican executive committees. These organizations represent a wide range of often competing interests, but they’re all on the same page: the change to mayor-council form of government will benefit the City of Covington and its residents.
I am honored to have served as mayor of Covington for the past eight years. I am retiring as of the end of this year, so I have no personal stake in this issue. I’ve watched Covington city government for decades and been mayor since 2016. I truly believe it is in the best interest of the people of this city and this city government to make the change to mayor-council form to better ensure that the progress of the past several years will continue.
I encourage you to support the change. Vote “yes” on the Covington public issue to adopt the mayor-council form of government.