Unlike the council-mayor forms, where the emphasis is on politicalleadership, the prevailing norms in the council-manager form areadministrative competence and efficiency.
Mayor-Council-Manager Relationship
Under thecouncil-manager form, the manager is the chief administrative office ofthe city. The manager supervises and coordinates the departments,appoints and removes their directors, prepares the budget for thecouncil's consideration, and makes reports and recommendations to thecouncil. All department heads report to the manager. The manager isfully responsible for municipal administration. The mayor in acouncil-manager form is the ceremonial head of the municipality,presides over council meetings, and makes appointments to boards. Themayor may be an important political figure, but has little, if any, rolein day-to-day municipal administration. In some councils-managercities, the office of mayor is filled by popular election; in others, bycouncil appointment of a council member.
The council-manager form is widely viewed as a way to take politics outof municipal administration. The manager himself is expected to abstainfrom any and all political involvement. At the same time, the councilmembers and other "political" leaders are expected to refrain fromintruding on the manager's role as chief executive. Of course, themanager, who is hired and fired by the council, is subject to theauthority of the council, but council members are expected to abstainfrom seeking to individually interfere in administrative matters,including actions in personnel matters. Some city charters provide thatinterference in administrative matters by an elected city official isgrounds for removal of the elected official from office.
Spread of Council-Manager Plan
The council-managerplan, first used in 1908 in Staunton, Virginia, received nationwideattention 6 years later when Dayton, Ohio, became the 1st sizablecity to adopt it. Thereafter, the plan's popularity enjoyed steady butnot spectacular growth until after World War II. At that time, manymunicipalities were confronted with long lists of needed services andimprovements that had backlogged since the Depression years of the1930s. Faced with such challenges, many municipalities adopted thecouncil-manager form. The plan has been especially attractive to smalland medium-sized localities. It is used in a majority of Americanmunicipalities with populations of 25,000 to 250,000. It has beenstrongly promoted since the 1920s by the National Civic League.
