WORCESTER _ The push for a strong mayor form of government has been getting a lot of attention lately, but there is perhaps an equal or greater, though quieter, feeling in the city that the current council-city manager format has worked well and should stay.
Call it the anti-strong mayor movement.
“There are plenty of us out there. I really do think it’s the silent majority,” Gary Vecchio, president of the Shrewsbury Street Neighborhood Association and a participant in the charter reform commission process in the 1980, told the Worcester Herald.
Gary Vecchio
Charter reform in the 1980s kept the Plan E city manager-council setup intact, but made the mayor popularly elected, created district council seats and mandated district representation on boards and commissions.
“Plan E has served us very well. I like the professional management. I like someone at the helm who is a professional manager who knows about finance, someone who knows about development, someone who knows about prioritizing the needs of the city, someone with the management skills to select good department heads,” Vecchio said. “You can’t be assured of getting this from a politician.”
Now, Vecchio alleged, the impetus for replacing the city manager with a powerful elected mayor is coming largely from political consultants who stand to benefit from the fund-raising, electioneering and politicking the four-year mayoral election cycle would spawn.
Indeed, some of those who have been most vocal in calling for the city council to vote a home rule petition – the precursor to a popular vote to change the form of government – are professional political consultants and lobbyists.
Among them: former city councilor Dennis Irish, magazine publisher Paul Giorgio, and Worcester Housing Authority chief, former mayor Ray Mariano, and former state senator Gerard D’Amico.
While some unions have joined a loose coalition of community activists calling for council debate and public discussion about charter change, Vecchio pointed out the most powerful municipal employee unions have stayed out of it, as has Chamber of Commerce CEO and former mayor and lieutenant governor Tim Murray.
Not everyone tipping toward the liberal end of the political spectrum wants to get rid of the city manager system. School Committee member Tracy Novick is among those who want the city manager to stay, and she noted that it would be inconceivable to elect the school superintendent.
“That’s the same thing as a strong mayor,” Novick said. “It’s pretty clear to me that voting someone in to run the operation of a half-a-billion-dollar budget is kind of a mistake.
While Novick acknowledged that some of those calling for a strong mayor are coming from neighborhoods that feel underappreciated – Steve Teasdale, head of the Main South Community Development Corporation is a notable example – she said that dynamic alone is not reason to change a system that has largely worked well.
“I would hope that spending some time in political office can be useful in making voices represented, but it’s not necessarily so good in terms of administration,” she said.
Meanwhile, no formal groups either pro or con have formed, other than the coalition that is only asking for “discussion” of the issue. And it is still unclear whether most strong mayor supporters want the council to push the change through quickly through a home rule vote, or to set up a traditional, elected charter commission that would take two or three years to come up with a proposal for a new governmental system that would then be voted on by the people.
Also unclear is whether Tim Murray, who has remained largely silent on the issue, is behind charter change and would see the mayor’s post as a launching pad for a return to politics. Another factor is the intentions of the current “weak” mayor, Joe Petty, who could be a contender for the strong version of the position, or could be eying the city clerk job that David Rushford is expected to vacate soon by retirement.
Giorgio, in an interview, said he prefers the council home rule route because it is much faster, and could result in the change being put before voters as early as the fall of 2015. To Vecchio and other opponents, though, this approach is akin to ramming through a major transformation of government when the home rule process is clearly meant for uncontroversial changes.
“This is about democracy and empowering neighborhoods, not stupid stuff,” Giorgio said, scoffing at the notion that political consultants are behind the strong mayor push. Strong mayor is a neighborhood government. Plan E is a downtown government.”
Paul Giorgio with President Clinton
Giorgio argued that electing a strong mayor would re-energize local politics and replace the current low voter turnout culture with much higher voter participation because more would be at stake.
Observers on both sides of the issue say the triggers that have sparked strong mayor sentiment are the departure of strong-willed former longtime city manager Mike O’Brien last year and his replacement with caretaker manager Ed Augustus, who will leave in the fall.
O’Brien, who was initially seen as focused on neighborhoods, like his predecessor, Tom Hoover, was increasingly viewed as interested mainly in downtown development and fiscal management and limiting neighborhood and housing activists’ access to city funding.
“Much as I locked horns with Mike O’Brien, he moved the city forward,” said former city councilor Wayne Griffin, another strong mayor opponent.
Griffin, maintained that there is no popular groundswell for charter change, and that it is only the political vacuum left by O’Brien’s exit that has led to the chatter about strong mayor – talk that invariably crops up every decade.
“I don’t see anyone out there getting signatures to put it on the ballot. They just want the council to go out and do it,” Griffin said. “I’m in the community a lot, and the average Joe in the streets is not clamoring for a change in government.”
Griffin noted that even the charter change coalition’s own survey last month showed that most residents want the city manager system to stay.
