What Exactly is the Mayor's Job?
Campaign posters and early voting signs have proliferated along the roads like wildflowers lately as Austin prepares to elect a new mayor and city council. Voter turnout for municipal elections over the country is typically low and Austin is no exception. Despite being known as a city for politics, Austin voter turnout for the mayoral and city council races is normally colse to ten percent.
What Exactly is the Mayor's Job?
So, just how important is the mayor in a city that also has a city manager? The easiest way to justify the incompatibility between the two is that the mayor is a political office and the city owner is a municipal employee, albeit an important one. Agreeing to a record by the Texas City management Association, "The mayor and city council furnish procedure and political leadership for the city. However, the city owner will be responsible for implementing policy."
It is the job of the city owner to supervise branch heads, get ready the budget, and coordinate departments. What then is the mayor's job?
According to the City of Austin website, the capital city practices a Council-Management form of government, as do most large cities over the country. This makes the position of the mayor largely a ceremonial one, along with being the presiding officer over the city council.
The elected mayor and the six-member city council are responsible for establishing procedure straight through passing local ordinances, voting appropriations and creating an uncut foresight for the city. Will Wynn has served two terms as the 50th mayor of Austin with a foresight of a strong downtown.
What are the visions of Austin held by the mayoral candidates vying to take Wynn's place? With a wide range of backgrounds and ages, the five candidates each have a unique take on the issues facing our growing city. Agreeing to society Impact newspapers, native Austinite Lee Leffingwell would bring his soldiery and airline pilot taste to "maintain the unique things about Austin straight through historic preservation." Leffingwell is also a supporter of small local businesses as a means of economic growth.
Former Austin Mayor (1977-1983) Carole Keeton Strayhorn seems focused on fiscal accountability and transportation issues. Current council member Brewster McCracken would like to move over to the position of mayor with a foresight of Austin's future as a clean vigor city. He emphasizes economic growth and neighborhood improvements.
The two political newcomers to the mayoral race are David Buttross, a local businessman, and Josiah Ingalls, who works at Hilton Austin as a housekeeper. Both candidates would like to see the city reign in spending, while Buttross also has an emphasis on best preserve and training for municipal services like fire and police. Ingalls would like to see Austin held accountable for how it spends every penny of the budget. Also, four of the six city council places are up for election.
Fresh on the heels of the high-voter turnout of the November presidential election, most Austinites know exactly where to go to vote and may still have their voter registration card handy. It only takes a few minutes to vote, as the lines aren't likely to be long in Saturday's municipal elections. The city owner may bear the accountability of the city's day-to-day operations, any way it is the mayor and city council who craft the policies of Austin's future. And it's the voter who bears the accountability for deciding just exactly who that mayor and council will be.
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