Washington, since 1970

Council-manager was the new thing. A lot of cities came back.

The council-manager option opened in 1970. There was a rush. Then Ocean Shores, Federal Way, Ferndale, Goldendale, Ephrata, Edgewood, and Snohomish reverted to mayor-council. The form is not a one-way upgrade.

227

Mayor-council cities
of 281 · 2020

Council-manager cities
42% of population

81%

Cities with a real mayor
227 ÷ 281

Reverted to mayor-council

Years from MRSC’s list of cities that changed form after 1970. Several more adopted mayor-council without a prior manager era, including Bonney Lake (1973), Anacortes (1982), Raymond (1998), Wenatchee (1999), Spokane (2001).

City	To council-manager	Back to mayor-council	Years in
Goldendale	1986	1994	8
Ferndale	1981	1999	18
Ephrata	1995	2003	8
Ocean Shores	1970	2007	37
Federal Way	1990	2009	19
Edgewood	1996	2014	18
Snohomish	1972	2016	44

Source: MRSC, City and Town Forms of Government. Edgewood incorporated as council-manager in 1996.

MRSC: arguments against council-manager

These are not our slogans. They are the standard criticisms Washington’s Municipal Research and Services Center lists in “Common Issues and Pro/Con Arguments in Elections to Change Form of Government.”

The council-manager form gives too much power to one person — the city manager.
A professional manager, often chosen from outside the city, does not know the community and is too far from the voters.
Councils may leave too much decision making to the manager, who is not directly accountable to the public.
Without an elected chief executive, the community lacks political leadership.
The council-manager form is too much like a business corporation, which is not suitable for managing community needs.
Citizens may be confused about who is in charge. Most expect the mayor to respond to their problems. The mayor has no direct control over the delivery of services and can only change policy through the city council.
City managers may leave a city when offered higher salaries and greater responsibilities.

The hybrid Camas already has

Many communities, looking for the benefits of professional management without the requirement of going through a formal election to change the form of government, have chosen to create a position similar to that of a city manager, but under the authority of the mayor. The resulting hybrid form of government is often described as being “the best of both worlds” that includes elected leadership with professional management of day-to-day local operations.
MRSC, Commentary: The Unofficial Role of the Administrator

Scholars worth reading

H. George Frederickson

The Adapted City

American cities rarely run a pure textbook model. They adapt. Camas already did — it hired a professional administrator under an elected mayor.

John Nalbandian

The Manager as Political Leader

Even the “non-political” manager becomes a political actor. The difference is that voters did not elect that person and cannot remove them on election day.

James H. Svara

Complementarity of Politics and Administration

Politics and administration are not a clean split. Selling council-manager as “take politics out of city hall” is a slogan, not a description of how cities work.

Clark County is not a verdict

Vancouver, Battle Ground, Ridgefield, and Washougal already use council-manager. That is a local fashion, not a finding that Camas’s form failed. Camas is the large city in the county that still gives voters a mayor with a job. The county itself runs council-manager under a charter. In June 2024 The Columbian reported outgoing Clark County councilors Karen Bowerman and Gary Medvigy citing that charter among the reasons they did not run again.

Subsidiarity is the old word for the same idea: keep power as close to the people it binds as you can. An appointed manager is a step away from the electorate, not toward it.

Questions to take to the September 21 meeting