Talk:Sacramento City Council
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Page Revitalization
editHello, I recently added an info-box with some details about the Sacramento City Council. I want to continue the work of making this article world-class, and I think it may involve some reorganization of the page, and potentially splitting off pages.
Firstly, I'd like to undertake the endeavor of starting new pages for each member of the City Council. I realize writing biographies of living people is an especially difficult task, especially for newer editors like myself, but I am ready to learn the ropes.
Secondly, I'd like to see a re-formatting of the tables that hold the data about the historical occupants of various seats. I view Chicago's City Council article as an example of this; not only is the formatting improved, but it is on a separate page, 'List of Chicago aldermen since 1923'.
Thirdly, I think some of the structure and phrasing of the article could be worth revisiting, and studied for potential improvements.
I need all the help I can get as I embark on this project, and would love your help and feedback.
Strong Mayor / Weak Mayor discussion
editGiven the recent proposal to change Sacramento's form of government, the description of the city's form of government in this article is sure to be topic of intense debate. This discussion page is meant to facilitate an exchange of ideas with one purpose: to accurately and objectively describe the form of government currently in existence in the city of Sacramento while adhering to Wikipedia's standards for a high-quality, verifiable article with a neutral point of view.
With that said, I will begin the discussion.
On January 24, 2009, a contributor named "Stopthepowergrab" made two edits to this article. The first struck the words "weak-mayor" out of an existing Wikipedia citation, causing the link to fail to take a reader to a Wikipedia reference. The second edit replaced the phrase "...the council, not the mayor, retains executive and legislative authority" to "...the council shares executive and legislative authority".
I have undone these edits for the following reasons:
- The edit broke a link to a properly-cited Wikipedia reference regarding the so-called "weak mayor" form of the mayor-council form of government, found here
- Whether one cares for the terms or not, the phrases "weak mayor" and "strong mayor" are commonly used in political science to describe subsets of the mayor-council form of government. Examples of these terms' use include books, journals, and encyclopedia sources such as:
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- State and Local Government Review, a journal collaboratively published by The University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government and the Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management (SIAM) of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA)
- The Dictionary of Public Policy and Administration (Shafritz, 2004)
- Forms of Local Government: A handbook on city, county, and regional options (Kemp, 1999)
- Excerpts from these publications include:
"Mayors may be characterized as either strong or weak. In the strong mayor-council plan, commonly found in large cities, the mayor is the chief executive, is popularly elected, and possesses broad budgetary, administrative, and appointive powers, including veto power over ordinances enacted by the council. Mayors in a weak mayor-council system typically possess few independent powers."
- from Forms of Local Government: A Handbook on city, county, and regional options (Kemp, 1999)"If the office of mayor is filled by separate citywide elections and enjoys such powers as veto, appointment, and removal, it is a strong mayor system; if it does not enjoy these powers, it is a weak mayor system."
- from The Dictionary of Public Policy and Administration (Sharfritz, 2004)"In the weak-mayor and council form, the mayor is merely council chairman and has largely only ceremonial and parliamentary functions. In the strong-mayor and council form, the mayor acts as real chief executive of the city or town, with the prerogative to veto actions of the council."
- from Encyclopedia Britannica, under "mayor and council system"
- Stating that a council "shares" power with a mayor in a council-manager form of government is misleading because the mayor does not represent a separate branch of government (e.g. the executive branch). In the council-manager form of government, a mayor "shares" power with a council member in the same way that one council member "shares" power with another council member. As such, said power is not shared between the mayor's office and the council; the power is held by the council, which happens to include a member with the title of "mayor". This is why the "weak mayor" form of the mayor-council form of government is sometimes referred to as the "ceremonial" mayoral form of government.