Miami has emerged as a premier city in myriad ways that includes arts and culture, entrepreneurship, international trade, finance, outdoor recreation, media and telecommunications, tourism, and immigration.
On Nov. 6, Miami voters have the opportunity to support a strong mayor proposal that will position the city to build on these assets, align with national best practices for urban governance, and better address key priorities, including housing, poverty, public safety, and transportation.
Essential to the recent success of many large, diverse cities is the accountability of their mayors. These municipalities operate under a system often described as “strong mayor,” which gives the voters a clear view of the person to hold responsible for the administration of their city. The mayors perform the executive or administrative functions of the city while the city commissions or councils, elected in most cases from single-member districts, exercise their historic legislative role.
In contrast, Miami’s current form of government diffuses much of the traditional executive authority of the mayor to the city commission and city manager. This system may have worked when the city charter was first adopted in 1921. But nearly a century later, the city’s urgent challenges are not well-served by this ambiguity of administrative responsibility.
Under the current system, voters are left wondering “who’s in charge,” with commissioners pointing to the city manager, and the city manager pointing to the broad policymaking authority of the commission and mayor.
This is a severely outdated role for the principal elected official of the state’s most prominent city, a highly complex, ethnically diverse, internationally renowned municipality facing enormous challenges.
The notable progress of strong mayors in reducing crime, fighting urban decay, protecting neighborhoods, and cutting bureaucratic red tape reflects the wisdom of that proposal.
As political scientist and author Robert Lorch has written: “Large cities…often prefer to put strong, popularly elected mayors in charge of city administration. A city manager might lack the political strength necessary to mobilize the municipal bureaucracy behind important projects or goals. The larger the city, the stronger must be the hand that directs it. Council-manager systems work best in cities with populations from 5,000 to 100,000.”
Some observers, including the Miami Herald editorial board, have argued that a strong mayor would compromise the “checks and balances” against influence peddling. This is an often-repeated claim that simply is not based in fact. A review of the nation’s 50 largest cities, 27 of which have a strong mayor system of governance, shows no correlation between the level of corruption and a strong mayor governance model.
To the contrary, corruption and influence peddling abound in opaqueness, and the systems of government with fractured executive authority dilute transparency of decision-making and accountability. Moreover, the cities that are widely recognized for solving big problems and protecting quality of life, such as New York City’s legendary reduction of crime, are overwhelmingly led by strong mayors.
The Herald cited Chicago’s history of “power bosses” as a reason for opposing this proposal. That is misleading. Chicago’s challenge is not an executive mayor. In an impressively thorough report on public corruption in Chicago and Illinois published earlier this year, the University of Illinois at Chicago Department of Political Science cited culture as the primary problem (“public corruption in Chicago has been endemic to the city’s and the state’s political culture for more than150 years”).
The report made thoughtful recommendations such as public integrity legislation, transparency of information, and increased citizen participation. All of those recommendations are more likely to be accomplished with a strong mayor with clear accountability to the people.
Miami’s strong mayor proposal is rooted in best practices and sound public policy. It would empower the city’s voters, enhance accountability and transparency, and strengthen the capacity for effective leadership that serves all the residents of Miami.
Shepard Nevel, born and raised in Miami, is an entrepreneur, a former CEO of a technology and education company, and was senior policy advisor to former Denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb. Prior to relocating to Denver, he served as an Assistant County Attorney for Miami-Dade County.
