Weak vs. strong

PALMER — The wording of Proposition 1 on the Oct. 5 borough ballot isn’t exactly descriptive.

“Shall the manager plan of government for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough be repealed?” it reads, in its entirety.

But what’s at stake is who will run the show: a professional manager hired by the assembly or an elected mayor. Currently the borough manager has control of day-to-day operations and the mayor — often referred to as a “weak mayor” — is just slightly more than a figurehead.

Proponents of the strong mayor form of government, which a “yes” vote would institute, say electing the mayor is just more democratic. With a strong manager the assembly gives the manager his marching orders. Proponents say they want a chief administrator accountable to the voters, not accountable to whatever four assembly members might vote to fire him.

“The manager form of government was fine 40 years ago when we had 8,000 people here. That’s normally what you do when you have a limited population to draw from,” said Assemblyman Mark Ewing, who sponsored the legislation that put the question on the ballot. “ Now we’re pushing 100,000.”

If the strong mayor turns out to be bad or corrupt, the citizens can just vote him out of office, or start a recall election. And even if the people chose a corrupt politician, Ewing argued, isn’t that still better than having the assembly choose?

“At least we made the decision and not four people sitting at a horseshoe-shaped table in the basement of an old school in downtown Palmer,” he said.

Ewing said he also thought the measure would save money — that the borough would only have to pay a manager, not a mayor and a manager. The borough, just right off the bat, would save the $100,000 it sets aside for the current weak mayor’s budget.

On the other side, people like borough planning commissioner and Palmer bookstore owner David Cheezem said they think the measure would actually grow government, costing taxpayers more, and be less accountable, rather than more.

“We’re going to have a full-time mayor and that full-time mayor, even if he doesn’t think so, it’s inevitable that that full-time mayor is going to hire another borough manager and an assistant borough manager,” Cheezem said.

The borough currently employs both a borough manager and an assistant borough manager. Cheezem said he thinks that under the new system there would be three full-time positions, all of them six-figure salaries, rather than two full-time positions and a part-time position.

He also argued that experience has shown that with strong mayors there tends to be more patronage. People who help the mayor get elected often end up with high-ranking city jobs when the mayor is seated.

And finally, there’s the accountability question. Cheezem said he’s heard the argument that electing a mayor means that mayor is accountable to the electorate. But if the assembly appoints a strong manager, that manager is accountable to the assembly, and the assembly members are closer to the people.

“My feeling is that your assembly representative is the person who is closest to you and he or she is the one that really knows your district,” he said. “When the assembly representative calls the borough manager, the borough manager knows that he has to return that call. The strong mayor doesn’t have to return that call because the assembly representative isn’t going to be able to fire the strong mayor.”

Nor is he convinced that it’s easier to fire a mayor than a manager. The assembly can act more swiftly than an electorate, even in the case of a recall election

“It’s a long, drawn-out process and if the mayor is doing something with the taxpayers’ money that isn’t right, that mayor sits in that seat for a long time before that recall election,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.