Charter best practice - is that a thing?
You bet! Rose City Reform gets a little help from the National Civic League's Mike McGrath to navigate the Model City Charter.
Who should be a city’s main operator: a mayor or a city manager? Should city council members serve at-large or represent districts? How big should the city council be?
These fundamental questions are currently being pondered by the Portland Charter Commission. They are also the questions that the National Civic League has been trying to answer for over 100 years.
Policy wonks, you’re in for a treat this week! I recently had the opportunity to go to my happy place and geek out on city governance best practice with Mike McGrath, the National Civic League’s director of research and publications.
Since 1894, the National Civic League - an organization whose founders include Teddy Roosevelt and Louis Brandeis - has been publishing recommendations for municipal governance. The ninth edition of the Model City Charter is hot off the press, just in time for Portland’s Charter Commission – the independent body tasked with reviewing the city charter and recommending changes – to compare and contrast their findings with the latest version of the Model City Charter.
For a deeper analysis of the alignment between the Charter Commission’s vision and the Model City Charter, read this post.
Here's Mike McGrath to guide us through the sections of the Model City Charter that are most relevant to Portland’s charter review process.
How should cities, charter commissioners and the general public use the Model City Charter?
It’s a model with alternatives, not a blueprint for cities to follow verbatim. We try to emphasize what we think is important and provide options for cities. We promote a professionalized model of government, but we also want to connect with certain values. Those values are efficiency, effectiveness, economy, professionalism, ethics, equity and engagement.
The latest edition of the Model City Charter emphasizes our belief that the public needs to be engaged more than just on election day and should be meaningfully involved in policymaking.
What form of government does the Model City Charter propose?
Since 1915, the National Civic League has recommended the council-manager form of government. The main advantage of the council-manager form of government is that the council can be solely a deliberative, policy-making body. It also allows, to a greater extent, for the separation of politics from the management of individual departments.
The history of the council-manager form of government goes back to trying to discourage corruption and patronage by preventing elected officials and party leaders from appointing friends and family-members or awarding contracts to cronies.
The council-manager model promotes professionalism, efficiency and, to a degree, ethics. Like any system, it can be abused, but overall, the council-manager form has historically worked well for cities.
Arguments against the council-manager form of government are often based on misunderstandings. We don’t think that having elected officials run city departments is a better form of accountability than having an appointed, professional manager who serves at the pleasure of the council and can be removed at any time. In the council-manager system, it’s ultimately the council that’s accountable to the public and the manager is accountable to the public through the council.
Does the Model City Charter make recommendations in terms of district-based or at-large representation?
We recommend either a [single member] district-based system or a hybrid version of district plus at-large representation. Cities that have an all at-large system and a diverse population risk ending up with a city council that is not representative.
We recognize that there is a benefit to having some at-large representation, because it means that some members are taking a citywide perspective and councilmembers aren’t only concerned with the needs or wishes of residents of their districts.
Another aspect is the possibility of adding proportional representation or ranked choice voting, which can make the system even more representative.
Does the Model City Charter consider multi-member city council districts as an option?
It’s not an official recommendation in the 9th Edition of the Model City Charter, but multi-member districts combined with ranked choice voting would be a form of proportional representation, which would be great way to go in terms of representation.
Ranked choice voting and multi-member districts add a layer of complexity for voters, but for cities that are comfortable with that complexity it would be a great option.
Does the Model City Charter recommend a certain council size?
The Model City Charter recommends a range of 5 to 9 council members. A smaller city council has the benefit of voters knowing who is on the council. That’s how the idea of the small council originated. Historically councils could be quite large with dozens of members and voters didn’t necessarily know much about their representatives.
Does the Model City Charter recommend a specific voting method?
No. We leave that decision up to the community. However, we see ranked choice voting as an interesting possibility. It’s an option that many communities are exploring and experimenting with, and it seems to be working well. Our expertise is not in voting systems, but we think it’s important for cities to evaluate how election outcomes can be as representative as possible.
Does the Model City Charter have recommendations in terms of the timing of elections?
The Model City Charter recommends odd-year November elections. In our opinion November voting is more in line with the culture of American politics and may increase voter turnout. The reason we don’t recommend municipal voting in presidential election years is because we want voters to focus on local issues and not be swayed by partisanship or national issues.
You said the Model City Charter recommends a council-manager system. Do you have any recommendations for cities that still want to use the mayor-council system?
We do. Our most important recommendation is that mayor-council governments should have a Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) who is answerable to the City Council, not just the mayor. Mayors are not necessarily elected because they are great managers and the position of a CAO can be similar to that of a professional city manager in many ways. The CAO or the city manager don’t just manage city operations, they also give policy advice, so their relationship to the council is critically important.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
So how does the Portland Charter Commission’s recent progress report stack up to the recommendations in the Model City charter?
The charter reform package taking shape aligns more with the National Civic League’s recommendations than Portland’s current system. But don’t take my word for it, read for yourself in the National Civic League’s recent newsletter, which refers to Portland’s current governance structure as an “odd duck”.
The most notable difference between the progress report and the recommendations in the Model City Charter is the size of the city council. The progress report floats a range of 9 to 15 council members, while the National Civic League recommends a smaller range of 5-9.
It’s still unclear whether Portland’s charter commissioners will follow the Model City Charter’s recommendation when it comes to form of government. While the council-manager system appeared to have majority support during the early days of the Charter Commission, a growing number of commissioners are now interested in empowering the mayor through a mayor-council form.
If this post has whet your appetite and you want to read the entire Model City Charter, the download of the latest edition is free for a limited time.
For all 83 pages, that’s what I call a bargain.
Maja Viklands Harris is a Portland resident, a recovering journalist, a policy activist and a serial citizen advisory board member. Her writing focuses on government reform, public process, decision-making psychology and policy best practice.