INSTEAD OF A MAYOR.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 11927, 22 October 1919, Page 7

INSTEAD OF A MAYOR.

CITY MANAGERSHIP ON TRIAL. AN AMERICAN EXPERIMENT. Ease ' Cleveland, the first city in the United States to adopt the plan of having a city manager in lien of a mayor, thereby banning politics from the administration of the city, has just completed its first year, says the New York Sun. There is a division of opinion as to whether the plan is a success or not. Many claim that under a city manager the citizens of the town have taken this attitude: ‘lt is the manager’s business to run the city, why should we worry about the details of policies? Mind your own business, and let the city manager mindjthe city’s,” This public apathyf has become so real, that many oe the citizens are already advancing the proposition that it would be well to have a few candidates for public office just to keep the voters awake, Mr S. M. Osborn, the city manager, in his first annual report, comments on this public apathy, and expresses tiie hope that the resume of his first twelve months’ achievements would awaken the citizens’ interest in the business of their city, A city manager is in no wise exempt from criticism: angry citizens are asking why no public improvements were made in the first year of his reign. His reply is that he has kept the city’s expenditure within its income, and that it .was a war year, ana that all unnecessary public worxs had to be postponed. Euithermore, he says that the city has no excess public funds, and that if’was good business [ not to launch any ambitious programme of public K improvement with | out having the money to pay for it. j The city manager, he asserts, was put in to give the city a business ; administration, not to run the city ; into debt, and then ask the citizens to dig down in their pockets to foot the bill. i East Cleveland has a population of 35,000, an area of three square ; miles , it has no slums, therefore no big social problems. The city , manager’s task is largely one of administration, purely a question of getting the full value for every cent of the 105,000 dollars that it takes to run this venturesome little city 7, > that w’ent so far as to try to collect : taxes from John D , Kockfeller who has a home there, and failed. i The business men who have r deal- j ings with the city manager admiuis- ( tratiou are all tor it. They agree j that they are treated in a more ' businesslike way, and that the manager system eliminates the political personality angle for contracts. Rids are studied, accepted, or rejected, simply on their merits; much quicker.action is the result. In regard to applying this system to large cities, students of East Cleveland are reluctant to express their opinion. They realise that a healthy and lively interest in

municipal affairs is essential to the maintenance of good government, and the apparent lapse of all interest whatsoever that has come over most of the citizens of East Cleveland has caused many of the students to refrain from drawing hasty conclusions. They assert that the attitude of municipal indifference is only a temporary condition, .brought about by the decision to give the city manager free, full and unhampered control of the city affairs, to show just exactly what he can do in his first term of office. They also ascribe a large part of the indifference to the natural reaction from the strong -partisanship that was developed here hy numerous bitter factional fights.. '