This November voters in Covington will be asked to change their form of government from a Council-Manager to a Mayor-Council (an executive mayor) system. The group asking for this change, Forward Covington, is led by business interests who argue that Covington’s current governmental form is not sufficiently efficient and that by investing more power in the mayor, decisions at city hall will occur more quickly.
Covington adopted the current Council-Manager form of government in 1930. This change reflected a national movement in cities which had seen that centralizing power in one person limited the impact of individual and divergent group voices upon decision making and increased the possibility of corruption. The fight to adopt Council-Manager government was a crusade for ending the “Boss” system and adopting “good government” in its place. Increasing public accountability and transparency of decision making at city hall as a result of sharing policy decision-making in a Council increased confidence that city hall was not dominated by any one special interest. Allowing different interests in the city to be represented in a council and have power to be in involved in setting policy increased the potential that policy would benefit the community rather than any one special interest.
Americans have always been wary of concentrating power in any one person or group because power tends to corrupt. When concentrated, power also tends to limit what interests in the community have access to the public agenda. The idea that democracy benefits from a fragmentation of power and having more voices setting public policy is captured in the American constitution, generally referred to as the “balance of power” between the executive and the legislature. Council-Manager government is a system that reflects this balance and it is important to note that a key value of a democracy is not about how fast a decision can be made, but how well it reflects the interests of the community.
Before voters in Covington determine that a dramatic change in government is warranted, perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider why this effort is being promoted now and what inefficiencies justify calling for such a change. Unfortunately, there has been no community discussion about the change, only Covington Forward’s public relations campaign and proposed ballot language that is devoid of any explanation regarding what Mayor-Council government actually entails: “Are you in favor of the proposal entitled petition for the City of Covington to adopt a Mayor-Council Plan?”
The current mayor has been a vocal sponsor of the ballot measure, arguing for its passage at community and business meetings throughout the city. Covington Forward spent tens of thousands of dollars on professionally printed materials and hired professional pollsters to obtain voter support for the effort. Except for the nebulous argument about efficiency, voters have been left in the dark as to the need for change or what potentially problematic outcomes of adopting an executive mayor system would be.
Nowhere has the public been able to obtain any explanation as to what problem or crisis justifies such an extreme change of governmental system. Could it be perhaps because there is no such crisis? If there is a valid reason for changing government form, why would the current mayor wait until the eighth year of his second term, and six months before he leaves office to call for this change? At no time during the previous eight years of this mayor’s administration have the people of Covington been told there is any problem with the efficiency of decision-making at city hall. In fact, during the COVID crisis, the mayor assumed executive power to direct the work of the city using the emergency powers the mayor has under the current Council-Manager form of government. So what is the problem with Council-Manager government when a crisis does occur?
The people of Covington deserve a community dialogue on the question of changing governmental form. Only hearing one side of the story flies in the face of community engagement, and the basis for democratic representative government. Without community dialogue, we might assume that increasing efficiency may simply be a smoke screen for special interests to place more power in one person who can be swayed to their point of view without public input into decision-making. In that respect the Mayor-Council proposal may be just an effort to revive the “Boss” system at city hall.
John T. (JT) Spence is a former Covington commissioner and a professor of political science whose research focus is local governance.