What might be called a crash course in municipal government was given Monday night at the Foley Building.
The presenters were Mike Fina, executive director of the Oklahoma Municipal League and Christian Rinehart, deputy general counsel – an attorney -- for the organization.
Although there were few in attendance, the information spread was the subject of discussions and lines of questioning that showed a genuine interest in the topic.
Four types of government were dissected – trustee, council-manager, aldermanic and strong mayor forms. In Oklahoma, of 587 municipalities, there are 418 towns that use trustees, 113, including Watonga, that have a council-manager format, 44 that use aldermanic government and only eight with a strong mayor. Of those, 91 towns and cities have charter governments, which allow some leeway in what form of rule is exercised.
The trustee government is usually preferred by smaller towns with fewer resources, such as Hitchcock in Blaine County. The elected officials do much of the work themselves, down to pulling weeds. If the town has any employees, they can be appointed and/or removed by the trustees.
In the council-manager format, the city manager handles personnel, the hiring, firing, promotion or demotion of the employees of the city. The city council is in charge of hiring and managing the city manager. Council members are essentially unable to direct the employees. The city manager in Watonga also is the director of the city’s trusts, which encompass the utilities and the airport.
Other cities that use the council-manager form include Piedmont, Enid and Yukon.
The aldermanic form of government is what Watonga used to exercise. The residents voted to change to the current council-manager form in 2019 and it became effective in 2021 The form is used by Poteau now, and according to Fina, very successfully. That town, though, also has a full time salaried mayor who earns $85,000 per year. The mayor can appoint or remove city employees, with those actions confirmed by the council.
“You need a good mayor who acts as a CEO full time,” he said. “If the mayor isn’t good, the city suffers.”
One of the advantages of a city manager over a mayor is that a manager can be hired. Rinehart said there is no recall option for cities that do not have a charter and the citizens are essentially saddled with a bad mayor until election time, with few exceptions. Those would include certain crimes including theft from the municipality.
Similar to the aldermanic form is the strong mayor format. Many of the strong mayor towns are also charter cities. Under the charter they can change their form of government should one become ineffective.
In a strong mayor town, the mayor acts as the city’s CEO. Some examples are Weatherford, Tulsa and Warr Acres.
A strong mayor can appoint or remove employees but the actions are subject to an appeal process.
Fina was the mayor of Piedmont for many years. He said the one thing council members must do to be successful is read and study the packet they receive, usually a few days prior to the regular council meeting.
Essentially, a member of the city government is tasked with improving the quality of life for the citizens. That, Fina said, isn’t just parks and sidewalks. Residents want to wake up in a safe neighborhood, have reliable utilities and good streets. When those necessities aren’t taken care of, the quality of life suffers.
That is where longer range planning comes into play. A water line replacement project doesn’t happen overnight, it must be planned and budgeted for, much the same way a family might budget for a new car.
The duties of members of the governing body, Rinehart said, is to set the direction of the city and approve the policies that move the city in that direction, then monitor the results.
The direction is influenced by the residents, their desires and the quality of life they aspire to.
Another sticking point, Fina pointed out, is that cities in Oklahoma live on sales taxes. They have no authority to levy taxes and are not helped out by property taxes. It is the only state in the Union that finances city services that way.
“Some cities can’t write checks until the 10th of the month when the sales tax figures come in,” Fina said.
That is where enterprise trusts come in, such as Watonga’s utilities department. The city owns the equipment and leases it to the trust- the utilities department. The income can only go to the city. The difference between the incoming revenue and the expenses of the trust are part of the funding for public services.
While all that is vitally important to anyone who serves or would serve on a city governing board, the bigger picture is more important.
Fina pointed out that the governor doesn’t come in and decide if a city street gets paved, but the people residents put on city council do. Anyone who is convinced that voting for a council member is unimportant, he said, is very wrong.
Instead, they are the people who have the biggest impact on the daily lives of the largest part of the population and therefore the upcoming elections are perhaps the most important.