Strong mayor system could include city administrator

Lewiston’s mayor would have a number of new responsibilities, such as enforcing health and quarantine orders, if the city’s voters back a change to a strong mayor form of government in the Nov. 2 election.

That duty now falls to the city manager, Lewiston City Attorney Jana Gomez said Thursday at an informational forum held by the Lewis Clark Valley Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters of the Lewis-Clark Valley at the Lewiston City Library.

A quiet crowd of more than 100 people attended the event at the Lewiston City Library that was supervised by the Lewiston Police Department in a tightly controlled format. Questions were submitted before the event, and no time was allotted for speakers other than the presenters.

Gomez summarized the differences between the strong mayor form of government and the city of Lewiston’s existing council-city manager structure.

Generally in cities with strong mayors, the mayor serves as the administrative head of the city, handling duties such as developing the budget, the role the Lewiston city manager plays now.

While Lewiston is one of only three Idaho cities with city managers, several strong mayor cities have city administrators, Gomez said.

“My understanding is (they are) similar to a city manager,” she said. “They’re a professional manager, and they assist the mayor in their duties. That’s also an option that could happen.”

In a strong mayor form of government, the mayor only participates in city council votes to break ties instead of voting in all city council decisions, Gomez said. The mayor would gain the power to veto ordinances, but the veto could be overridden by a simple majority of the city council.

“It’s not any vote taken by city council, but any ordinance,” Gomez said. “Ordinances are what usually gets codified into the city code as the local laws governing the city.”

City managers can be fired with a majority vote of the city council. The process to remove mayors involves recall elections with a number of steps.

Whether the city of Lewiston’s elected officials will have to learn how to navigate the new system will be decided in the election Nov. 2.

A draft sample ballot distributed at the forum contains four sections for voters to complete to decide the city’s leadership.

The first is a question: “Shall the city of Lewiston retain its organization under the council-manager plan?” If a simple majority votes no, the city of Lewiston’s form of government will change.

The language in the question is statutory, Nez Perce County Auditor Patty Weeks said.

“Idaho code says this is what it shall say, so that’s what we have,” Weeks said.

The next section gives voters a chance to pick the four people they want to serve on the City Council, if Lewiston’s city government stays the same.

A third section provides an opportunity to vote for a single candidate for mayor, and a fourth is where voters pick six city councilors to serve if the city goes to a strong mayor format.

“Vote all sections,” Weeks said.

People can run for City Council under the existing and the strong mayor structure. They can also run for City Council under the present structure and for mayor under the strong mayor format, but they can’t run for both mayor and City Council in the strong mayor system, Gomez said.

The candidate filing period is from Aug. 23 to Sept. 3. The mayor’s salary has been set at $80,000 a year plus optional benefits by the Lewiston City Council. If no mayoral candidate secures a majority of votes, the top two candidates will face each other in a runoff election within 30 days of the general election.

Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.