Norfolk mayor: more power?

With Paul Fraim set to be sworn in today as the city’s first elected mayor since 1916, conversations are already being held about increasing the mayor’s power. Right now, the mayor is simply an eighth voice on council, representing the city at large, with no additional powers. We have a city-manager form of government, with the mayor being largely a ceremonial role. Two councilmen – W. Randy Wright, who represents Ward 5, and Anthony Burfoot, who represents Ward 3, weighed in on the issue:

“Every great city in America has a strong-mayor form of government,” City Councilman Randy Wright said.

[…]

Burfoot said Norfolk residents are engaged enough that a strong mayor would not be allowed to abuse power.

As fellow Hampton Roads blogger Hampton Roads Politics has pointed out, Norfolk residents are far from being engaged:

Well, except for the 82% of the registered voters that didn’t even bother to vote in the Mayor’s election this year.

Fraim says it is early to be looking at adding powers to the mayor’s office but thinks it should be looked at in the future. I think we need to first look to what giving power to a mayor can do. Look up the road 90 miles and see how Richmond is faring with Doug Wilder as a strong elected mayor. Save Richmond is a great place to read about how things are going. One of the most telling posts there is entitled Missed Appointments:

As we have documented here at Save Richmond, the mayor’s recent appointments and hiring decisions have been — to be blunt — completely non-sensical and based on qualifications that would seem to be non-existent or disturbingly political. For example: Richmond is currently at the mercy of a performing arts committee made up of Virginia Performing Arts Foundation members and loyalists who have already wasted millions in public money, and wish to be given more… a mayoral spokesman who won’t call reporters back and waits weeks to get basic information to average citizens… and a secretive school advisory committee that would seem to be nothing more than a group of handpicked hacks working for the mayor, not the people.

Now, thanks to the always-wonderful Church Hill News, we find out that the first person that Freed G. Etienne — the city’s first deputy chief in charge of housing, land use and community development — will be investigating is himself. The new “housing boss to spearhead efforts in community development” is also an absentee property owner who has let at least one of his houses in Church Hill sit untended for years.

I don’t think we want that here in Norfolk. Of course, under the Dillon Rule, adding powers to the mayor’s office requires General Assembly approval. And it is unlikely that those given to Wilder would even be considered for Norfolk:

Del. Paula Miller, D-Norfolk, said she would not be opposed to some increase in the mayor’s authority, but she doubts the General Assembly would approve the kind of powers it gave in 2004 to Richmond’s mayor, a post now held by former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder.

“We wouldn’t want to go down that path,” she said, adding that Wilder has too much authority.

I have no doubt that council will pursue a change in the powers of the mayor. It is not a question of if but when. The only thing I want is the conversation to be with the citizens of Norfolk. Too many times in the past, council makes decisions affecting us in a vacuum, without our input. This should not be one of those times.