You'd think that a city that's grown from 66,000 in 1920 to nearly 500,000 today might want to reconsider its nearly 90-year-old city manager form of government.
But when Sacramento's Charter Review Committee, after seven months of work, presented its final report on the structure of city government to the City Council on Tuesday, it was clear that the committee likes things in Sacramento just the way they are, thank you.
The committee likes having an unelected city manager serve as the chief executive officer of the city, directing all city departments and making policy and annual budget recommendations to the City Council. They like having the mayor, the only city officer elected citywide, simply be another member of the council.
Committee members waxed eloquent about how such a form of government fosters professionalism and a culture of collaboration. Really? Have they visited City Hall lately?
For their part, council members seemed content only to offer praise for the quality of charter committee members and their hard work. They chose not to engage with the substance of the committee's work, making it look as if they hadn't read the report.
One council member, Steve Cohn, offered a substantive (though silly) idea. The council always adopts a budget on time, he said, but the charter should have a provision requiring the mayor and council to forfeit their salaries if a budget isn't passed on time. This is the most important charter change Sacramento should consider?
Council members did, however, mull extending the committee's work beyond its end-of-January sunset. (The committee will make recommendations in December and January on the issues of a full-time City Council, an ethics commission and instant-runoff voting.) Report back to us on other issues you might want to look at, said council member Rob Fong. You need some more time, said Sandy Sheedy. We want the work to continue, said Kevin McCarty. Why?
Lauren Hammond expressed tepid skepticism about the committee's product: "I can't believe your recommendation is basically the same … the status quo with a little tweak." Well, yes, that's what it is.
Mayor Kevin Johnson, who got the last word, could barely contain his impatience. The nation's framers, he observed, produced the U.S. Constitution in three months, 23 days. He dismissed the committee's work as "business as usual."
Committee member Grantland Johnson, a former City Council member, captured the issue best when he told the council that Sacramentans are left with "only two extreme approaches on the table" – the status quo and a strong-mayor initiative that will be on the ballot in June 2010. Yet, he continued, "there are other combinations of change that might make sense."
But the committee didn't consider them. Committee member Chris Tapio tried, unsuccessfully, to get the committee to consider the National Civic League's model city charter, which is a hybrid "mayor-council-chief administrative officer" form of government, and the Long Beach hybrid model. His four-page minority report is worth reading.
Tuesday's meeting revealed a council utterly disengaged on the issue of charter change. The charter review committee's self-satisfied, unimaginative report likely will gather dust on a shelf.
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