Friday, April 07, 2000
Bad time to switch city managers
BY HOWARD WILKINSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
An election 19 months in the future may be the best thing Cincinnati City Manager John Shirey has going for him in keeping his job.
“Picking a new city manager in this politicized environment could be disastrous,” said Mayor Charlie Luken Thursday, a day after City Hall was abuzz that a majority of city council is ready to fire the city manager.
By “politicized environment,” the mayor means the Nov. 2001 election, where Cincinnati voters will go to the polls for the first under a new system of government that voters approved a year ago.
The mayor and a nine-member council will be elected then. But the mayor will be chosen in a separate election and not be a member of council, as the mayor has been for more than 70 years.
And the nine-member council will be different, too.
It is guaranteed that after the Nov. 2001 election, there will be at least four new council members. Three incumbents — Republicans Charles Winburn and Phil Heimlich and Democrat Todd Portune — will be term-limited out. A fourth spot will be opened by the removal of the mayor from the nine-member council.
But perhaps the biggest change is that the newly-elected mayor will, “with the advice of council,” present a name for the post of city manager that must be approved by a majority of council.
“The present system lacks accountability and the new system instills it,” said Aaron Herzig, one of the leaders of the Issue 4 movement. “In the new system, the mayor will have some connection to the city manager.”
Under the present system, the city manager serves at the pleasure of a majority of council. At present, it seems that many council members are dissatisfied with Mr. Shirey, who earns $149,000 per year in a job he has held since 1993.
Clearly, some council members are angry with how he has handled some city contracts, with slow movement on the economic development front and with a series of recent scandals in city departments.
But what is not clear is whether there are five votes on council to remove him.
Mr. Luken, who took over as mayor Dec. 1 after a 10-year absence from city hall, is not sure this is the right time to be talking about finding a new city manager, specifically, because of the new city government system that is right around the corner.
“My question would be, who could we find that would want this job right now?,” Mr. Luken said. “The political uncertainty out there is going to shrink the talent pool considerably.”
Mr. Luken has made it clear that he intends to be a candidate for mayor in the first direct mayoral election next year.
“But no one knows who is going to be elected mayor,” Mr. Luken said.
Anyone that a council majority would hire as city manager now, Mr. Luken said, “would have to wonder if it weren't just a short-term job until the new council comes in.”
“I don't know what kind of professional city manager would walk into a situation like that,” Mr. Luken said.
Councilman Pat DeWine, a Republican elected to his first term last fall, says he will not discuss whether he wants Mr. Shirey to stay or go. But he is not particularly concerned about the 2001 election interfering with finding a new manager.
“I don't buy the reasoning that because of this election coming up, you don't change city managers, if that's what you think is best for the city,” said Mr. DeWine, one of the architects of the new electoral system.
“I'm not convinced you couldn't get someone to come in and do the job, even for just a year and a half,” Mr. DeWine said. “And I don't buy into the idea that it has to be a professional city manager, a bureaucrat. I think we could go beyond bureaucrats to find someone.”
But Mr. Luken said that Cincinnati has had a tradition of professional city managers that it should continue, and that would mean looking outside as well as inside City Hall.
“I've said before that I have a general satisfaction with what the city manager is doing,” Mr. Luken said. “If council members don't, I understand that. I'm just not sure this is the time to be changing direction.”
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