
CON: The Charter Is Deeply Flawed, Confuses Executive, Legislative Duties
I am the co-incorporator of the City of St. George and Treasurer of the St. George Transition District. I am opposed to the St. George Home Rule Charter (HRC) that will be on the March 29, 2025, ballot.
Let me state right at the begin- ning the four major problems with the proposed Charter:
1. The proposed Charter blurs the distinction between the Execu- tive and Legislative branches of government and gives almost all Executive power to the City Coun- cil, which is the Legislative branch of government. In other words, the Council would actually be running the government, not the Mayor.
2. The Charter provides that the Council will in turn give all power to the City Manager, who is not an elected official. If things are going badly, we should be able to vote the person out of office who is the problem. But that will be impossi- ble. If the City Manager can keep four of the seven Council members in his pocket, he can rule the city forever
3. The person responsible for running our city should be an elected official directly answerable to the people, not an appointed, all- powerful bureaucrat. The person responsible for running the city should be the Mayor.
4. In a privatized city, the pro- gram manager of the company running the city is in effect the City Manager. The Mayor can fire him at any time. There is no need to pay a City Manager hundreds of thousands of dollars. The private contractor is responsible for day to day operations but always under the supervision of the Mayor.
Council-Managed Municipal Governance Model Has Never Been Used in Louisiana. There are 303 functioning municipalities in Louisiana. All utilize a Mayor- Council governance model with the traditional separation of pow- ers. The mayor exercises executive authority, and the council maintains legislative authority..
However, the St. George mayor, council members, and the Home Rule Charter (HRC) Commission are recommending a Council- Managed form of government that has never been used in the 212- year history of Louisiana.
It would dramatically change the responsibilities of the mayor and council. The executive branch would hardly exist and almost all power would be in the hands of the City Council. The city would be governed much as Parliament gov- erns the United Kingdom.
Outside Louisiana there are Council-Managed cities, and all have the following attributes:
• The Mayor is part-time with no legislative or administrative au- thority, no budget responsibility, and supervises no one.
• Council members are part-time and retain all executive and legislative authority.
• The City Manager is a highly paid, full-time contractor making $250,000 or more. He is hired and fired by the council. He rather than the Mayor is responsible for pro- posing and executing of the city budgets.
• None are privatized cities.
Municipalities Have Reject- ed the Council-Managed Form of Government. As an example, voters in the city of Madison, Ala- bama, rejected by 75 percent the proposed City Council-City Man- ager form of government. Some of the reasons stated for its defeat:
• “The City Council-City Man- ager form of government was a step backward for Madison. It disenfranchised voters by taking away their ability to vote directly for the person running the city.”
• “The people of Madison have spoken. They want to have the right to continue to elect the person who runs this city. They don’t want more government, they want less!”
The St. George Mayor Will Be the Highest Paid in America in a Council-Managed City even Though He Has Few Duties. Af- ter researching 32 Council-Man- aged cities, I can unequivocally state there is nothing in the pro- posed St. George City Charter that warrants a full-time mayor.
• The average compensation for mayors in Council-Managed cities was $22,000 and for Council members $12,500.
• The highest paid Council Managed mayor is the mayor of Dallas who has a salary of $80,000. The annual budget is $5 billion —100 times larger than St. George and serves 1.3 million residents.
On January 14, 2025, the St. George city council approved the compensation for the mayor to be $160,000. That is excessive, whether it is a traditional Mayor- Council with all executive authori- ty, or a Council-Managed city with a mayor having no administrative authority. I cannot endorse paying a CEO level salary to a mayor who has so few duties.
That is why every Council- Managed city in America has a part-time mayor who is compensated accordingly.
I do not support the proposed St. George Home Rule Charter. I prefer to allow the first elected of- ficials to gain experience with the soon-to-be implemented Public- Private partnership, and then de- termine what, if any, governance model recommendations should be considered by voters in a HRC.
I remain confident St. George will become a pacesetter city in East Baton Rouge Parish. Once the voters decide the fate of the Home Rule Charter on March 29, it is our collective responsibility to work together toward the success of our new city. The St. George vision of- Better Government, Local Control remains fully intact.
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