By Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter
Dallas, TX –
Bill Zeeble, KERA 90.1 reporter: 30-thousand signatures have been gathered in Dallas backing a switch to a strong mayor system. Only 20-thousand are required to get it on the ballot. The city's still validating names. Beth Ann Blackwood, who pushed the proposal, then paid people and enlisted volunteers to gather signatures, says the city needs her version of a strong mayor.
Beth Ann Blackwood, Author, Strong Mayor Proposal: Now, no one's in charge at City Hall at all. You can't get anything done. The best people putting forth their best efforts would have a hard time making anything happen under our current form of government. Citizens of Dallas need someone who's in charge, and the person in charge needs to be accountable to voters.
Zeeble: Dallas currently operates under a Council-Manager form of government that puts the city manager, like a CEO, in charge of daily operations, departments, and budget preparation. The power resides nearly equally with the 14 elected council members and the mayor. They hire the city manager. Convinced the system no longer works, Blackwood's plan would shift nearly all the manager's jobs to the mayor - from the budget, enforcement of city laws, and direction of all departments, to the hiring and firing of department heads, city attorney, and others. The mayor would also make nearly all appointments to commissions and boards now made by council members. Language distilling Blackwood's 153-page document into a ballot proposal won't be determined until petition names are certified. But Mayor Miller initially rejected the proposal as extreme, because it eliminates the city manager's position.
Laura Miller, Mayor of Dallas: Which I disagree with. I think that goes too far. It also has the mayor approving department heads and police and fire chiefs. I think that goes too far.
Zeeble: Now, however, Miller's changed her mind. She explained why after a recent Dallas Citizens' Council luncheon that featured a famously strong mayor, Chicago's Richard M. Daley.
Miller: I'm like Mayor Daley. I'm impatient; I want it done tomorrow and not in 5 or 10 years. And it's easier to get it done in a city or business if one person is in charge and has a great board of directors. And that would be the Dallas City Council and mayor in my opinion. We have the opportunity now here in Dallas, in the next 6 months, to make that change. To do what they're doing in Chicago. To make someone accountable for their vision.
James Fantroy, Dallas City Council Member: Daley ran Chicago with an iron fist and everything had to go through Daley. Well, we getting close to that, and we don't want that.
Zeeble: James Fantroy, who represents parts of far south Dallas, is the city council member most vocally opposed to a strong mayor system. He's recalling the legendary - some say infamous - Richard J. Daley of the 1950's and 60's, father of the current Chicago mayor.
Fantroy: Because, look, most of your cities that have had this strong mayor form of government - look at the corruptions. The corruption that falls behind when you put all this power in a couple peoples' hands. As far as I'm concerned, the good old boys want to run it again. And I'm scared when we talk about the good ol' boys running it. Take a look at the history. The good ol' boys hadn't been good for our community.
Zeeble: Fantroy and other African American council members say a strong mayor system would undermine the single member district form of government designed to more fairly distribute power and city services. The mayor not only disagrees, but says a strong mayor would have to be more in touch with voters, because - unlike a city manager - she'd be accountable to everyone. SMU professor Cal Jilson says a strong mayor system works in ethnically diverse cities like Houston, which responds rapidly to local and global competition, and, he adds, "eats Dallas' lunch." Dallas, Jilson says, is too big not to have a strong mayor. But he worries the Blackwood proposal may be too strong.
Cal Jilson, Political Science Professor, Southern Methodist University: It's more than any other city in Texas. It doesn't comport with Texas history, which is concerned about concentrated power. What the Blackwood proposal does is to make the mayor a dominant figure in city government by giving to them the power to set the budget and hire other executive officials. And that's as strong as any mayor in the country has.
Zeeble: Other large and small U.S. cities have pondered the same weak mayor/strong mayor issue. San Diego, one of the nation's other large cities with a council-manager system, just passed a strong mayor form of government, 51 to 49 percent. There, San Diegans considered a complex plan that won't take effect until January of 2006. And it'll be subject to a five-year probation. Two years ago, voters in Sarasota, Florida considered a strong mayor system. Political Science Professor Keith Fitzgerald, at Sarasota's New College, understood why, saying it's hard to exert leadership under a city manager. But the proposal there failed because Fitzgerald says it gave the mayor excessive power.
Keith Fitzgerald, Political Science Professor, New College in Sarasota, Florida: It was so overdone, it looked almost like an elected dictator. They put all power in charge of the mayor. There were no checks and balances. It was just overdone.
Zeeble: There's one big check in the Blackwood plan. Described as a standard impeachment clause, the council can remove the mayor by a two-thirds vote, under certain circumstances. Beth Ann Blackwood dismisses any concerns about her proposal.
Blackwood: People have their own opinions. I don't know if I can say "you're wrong." On something like city government, everyone will have their own opinions and that's what's great about this. It'll be on the ballot, everyone will get to express their opinion by voting. But I know people have many different opinions on how government should work. I respect those opinions but I believe what we're proposing will be good for Dallas.
Zeeble: Counting and confirming signatures on Blackwood's strong mayor ballot petition is expected to take at least another week. For KERA 90.1, I'm Bill Zeeble.
90.1's Catherine Cuellar assisted with this story.
Email Bill Zeeble about this story.