Voters, not a majority of the City Council,
should decide mayoral salary.

By Nancy J. Nadel,
Oakland City Council member, District 3

Voters, not a majority of the City Council, should decide mayoral salary. In 1981, Councilman Robert Campbell presented to Councilman Al Silva and me a charter change to allow voters to directly elect their city mayor. The original charter provides for a strong city manager form of government, with the mayor elected annually by his or her colleagues.
    What prompted interest in the directly elected mayor were two primary factors. The first had to do with the city seeking state and federal funding from Sacramento and Washington, D.C. We observed in approaching government agencies that with a one-year mayor rotation, the city had no continuity of leadership. Frequently, questions were raised as to what happened to the last mayor. During a four-year span of time, state and federal officials would see four different mayors representing the needs of the city. Commitments of funding made to one mayor did not necessary carry over to the new mayor. We felt it would be best to elect a mayor who would, over a period of time, be aware of and follow up on projects that often took several years to receive funding.
    The second factor was the community benefit. There was a need to have the presence of one person to speak on behalf of the council and provide leadership. The majority of the council — Campbell, Silva, Lonnie Washington, George Livingston, Fritz Allen and myself — intended the mayor position to be part-time, and we placed the charter amendment before the voters. In fact, at that time, eight members of the council had full-time jobs, with only Tom Corcoran being retired. The charter amendment was approved by the voters in 1981, with Corcoran serving as the first elected mayor with a salary of $3,000 per month. Each mayor elected thereafter — Livingston, Rosemary Corbin and Irma Anderson — worked a fulltime job and was provided the same $3,000 salary with a periodic cost of living adjustment (COLA).
    The mayor’s primary responsibility is to represent the city in signing official documents, preside over council meetings, work with the city manager in preparing the budget, appoint citizens to boards and commissions and do ribbon-cuttings and other miscellaneous jobs. The mayor has only one vote on the council, as do the other eight council members. The mayor can veto any item, but a majority of the council can override. The charter continues to provide the same strong city manager form of government as intended when the city was incorporated in 1909. Therefore, the mayor’s authority is limited and restricted by the charter and, in my opinion, does not deserve a full-time salary without the vote of the people.
    City legal staff have ruled that the City Council and not the voters have the right to determine the mayor’s salary. This is very dangerous, because in the city attorney’s opinion, at any council meeting, a majority of the council has the authority to vote the mayor a salary equal or more than that of the city manager. The only recourse the voters have is voting on a referendum, which requires the signatures of 10 percent of the registered voters that must be collected within a 30-day period, including weekends and holidays.
    My solution to this problem is to request my colleagues place on the November 2008 ballot a charter amendment that would allow the voters to determine the salary of the mayor with an automatic COLA annually. It should be the voters’ choice of how their tax dollars are allocated and not the majority of the council, which, after the November 2008 election, will be four votes.
    No four individuals should have that much power.

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