Republican Mayor Elected, Democratic City Council to Strip Mayor's Office of Power!

This is madness! The people of Annapolis voted in a Republican mayor, ousting the incumbent Democrat.

Keywords there are 'the people voted.'

Democratic Alderman proposes legislation to make the post of Mayor a ceremonial title only!

Democratic Alderman Ross Arnett of Ward 8 tells The Capital he will introduce a charter amendment to move Annapolis to a council-manager style of government. The city manager would report directly to the City Council, not the mayor. Under Arnett’s legislation, the mayor’s post would be largely ceremonial. The mayor would retain a single vote on the council. Arnett says the change would stabilize the city’s management. If the measure is approved, it would mean the Democratic-dominated council would be removing the powers of the first Republican mayor elected since 1997.

What the crap is going on? Clearly the people of Annapolis want a change, they voted for this guy! A true, irrefutable example of how our votes mean nothing! It's like the city officials are basically saying, you failed, you didn't play the game and vote for the right guy, okay no problem, we'll just remove any power from the guy you DID vote for.

Did I just wake up in Russia? It's getting so BLATANT.

CBS Source

reply to post by Ameilia

Annapolis Alderman Ross Arnett, D-Ward 8, said he told The Capital of Annapolis that he wants the City Council to reconsider an amendment that would put Annapolis under a council-manager style of government, saying it's something that has come up before and that it has nothing to do with the newly elected Republican mayor.

"I think there's a tempest in the teapot here," Arnett said. "This whole slant that this is angry Democrats trying undo or to emasculate a newly elected Republican mayor is just not the case."

Mayor-elect Michael Pantalides said he believes Arnett. The two spoke by phone Monday morning.

"This has nothing to do with me. This has come up year after year," Pantelides said. "When I talked to him, he actually said it got out of control. He wasn't doing it because I'm Republican. He brought it up under two previous Democratic administrations. I absolutely believe him."

Don't go crazy, it's just a lot of spin, this is something they've been trying to do for years including under the last two Democratic mayors.

sou rce

reply to post by theantediluvian


That does make it slightly less disgusting, IF it is true. The Mayor's quote sounds a little lame.

"When I talked to him, he actually said it got out of control. He wasn't doing it because I'm Republican. He brought it up under two previous Democratic administrations. I absolutely believe him."

Okay, so if it needs to be done so dang bad, WHY has it NOT been done during the past two administrations? It's that hard? Gotta wait for a Repub in there?

Ameilia
reply to post by theantediluvian

 

That does make it slightly less disgusting, IF it is true. The Mayor's quote sounds a little lame.

"When I talked to him, he actually said it got out of control. He wasn't doing it because I'm Republican. He brought it up under two previous Democratic administrations. I absolutely believe him."

Okay, so if it needs to be done so dang bad, WHY has it NOT been done during the past two administrations? It's that hard? Gotta wait for a Repub in there?

I don't know why they haven't done it yet, but the mayor really doesn't have much power anyway under the weak mayor system he's largely symbolic already:

"We have a weak mayor system -- the mayor only has one of nine votes on the council, so if you have this city manager, there's no point in having a mayor, and that's not what the people voted for," Pantalides said.

In a "weak" mayor-council system, the mayor has no formal authority outside of the council; he/she cannot appoint and/or remove officials, and lacks veto power over council votes.[1] As such, the mayor's influence is solely based on his/her personality in order to accomplish desired goals.
This elected, weak mayor form of government may be found in small towns in the United States that do not use the more popular council–manager form used in most municipalities that are not considered large or major cities.

wiki weak-mayor system

So maybe the question we should be asking is why are sites "reporting" this like it's a Democratic coup on a newly elected Republican mayor? Check out the comments, that's why. It doesn't matter if it's true or significant it just matters that it causes people to flip out.

The scenario you describe is eactly how local government works in Australia.

The mayors role is purely cermonial but as is usual with Australians, they believe anyrhing Americian is superior to the same thing Australian so the trend here is to boost the role of mayor to make it more like Amerika.

More and more we hear talk about 'The Mayor"

Don't take it so hard. Most city governance systems are good ole' boy networks run by the local machines. When someone gets elected who isn't part of that machine, it doesn't matter what little letter they wear, the city council acts like a high school mean girls clique. It happened in Kansas City when they elected Mayor Funkhouser (sp). He was not part of the local machine, and both the city council and local press did everything they could to thwart him and make him an embarrassment despite the fact that he was a democrat like they all were. He was the city auditor and proposed some responsible stuff like cutting budgets and giving the city a much-needed new sewer sytem, see.

Now they have the much more "respectable" democrat Sly James who has one son who keeps getting arrested for either starting drunken brawls in night clubs or drunk driving and lost another son in a drunk driving car accident ... but he's so much more respectable that every likes him see. After all, he does wonderful things like ignore new sewer systems for all in favor of a limited street car line no one wants so he had to rig the vote for it heavily against the people who would actually have to pay for it.