Council should hold true to city voters

One of the tests of any political entity is making decisions unpopular with some for the overall greater good. This is a test Palmer City Council has passed by recently upholding a previous council’s decision to cut the position of mayor from full-time to part-time.

First decided November 2007, the change recently went into effect with this past municipal election. The result is Mayor John Combs is now a part-time mayor. More than a year after that initial decision, an attempt to restore the office of mayor to full time failed this past week.

Although seen as unfair by some, we support Palmer City Council and agree the city doesn’t need a full-time mayor. Palmer is a municipality with a strong city manager, one with authority to run the day—to-day operations of the city. The main reasons the office was expanded to full time about three years ago were to act as a liaison between council and city management and to lobby on behalf of Palmer.

With a strong city manager in Bill Allen working with council and the city’s department heads, another go-between to liaise between council and the city is overkill. Unlike Wasilla, where its mayor serves as the organization’s chief executive, having a full-time mayor and city manager at times creates confusion about who’s really in charge.

There’s no question Combs is loyal to Palmer and passionate about moving his city forward, which is why city residents have trusted him to be their mayor. That his salary has been cut from $45,000 to $24,000 a year along with benefits doesn’t sit well with some. He’s been Palmer’s mayor since 2004. When he was first elected, Combs was a part-time mayor, and now is again.

The only inequity we see with the council’s decision is in its timing. Although we support curtailing the office to part time, the move should not happen in the middle of the mayor’s term.

The residents of Palmer elected Combs believing he would be their full-time mayor, and the people should be served by someone in that capacity for the term he was elected. Making the position part time beginning with the next mayoral election in 2010 seems the most equitable solution.

The bottom line is Palmer doesn’t need a full-time mayor, but a full-time mayor is what the people elected.