Long Beach City Council Proposes Stripping Powers Of City Manager

The Long Beach City Council is proposing changes to the city charter that would strip some powers from the City Manager and give them to the City Council instead.

The move comes in response to the ongoing payout scandal the city is still dealing with. In response to audits done by the New York State Comptroller, the city said one of the reasons the payouts happened was that the City Manager had powers that should have belonged to the City Council.

"The City Charter imbues all administrative authority in the City Administration — specifically in the hands of the unelected, and appointed City Manager," the city wrote in its official response to the audits last year. Because of this "lopsided authority," the council wrote that it would "consider" studying reforms to the city charter to improve the city's checks and balances.

Those changes are now going forward, at least for discussion. Under the current charter, the City Council appoints the City Manager, who is then responsible for appointing other city officers, such as the comptroller, the treasurer, the corporation counsel and so on. The changes would amend that to make the City Council responsible for appointing those positions.

The changes would also authorize the City Council to remove any of those officers. Previously, it was up to the City Manager to do so.

The proposed changes also change the role of the City Manager from a defacto mayor to one who works for the City Council. The previous version of the charter read that the City Manager "...shall be the mayor of the city and shall have and exercise all powers conferred upon the mayor." But the proposed version reads, "The city manager is subordinate to, and reports to, the City Council and shall be the Senior Executive running the day to day operations of the city."

There are also many other small proposed changes that would confer more of the powers of the City Manager to the City Council, making more of a legislative body that runs the city. You can read all of the proposed changes by clicking here.

The City Council will be holding a public meeting to discuss the changes at City Hall on Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. The meeting is open to the public.