The structure of municipal government is important because it determines the individual or group who has the power to carry out administrative actions for a given municipality. When a city or village is in the process of passing a particular ordinance the structure of the municipal government will decide what routes must be taken in order to make the legislation into law. The structure also helps to identify who has the responsibility for resolving issues when they arise. In the state of Georgia municipal government generally takes one of two forms, the mayor-council form or the council manager form. With regards to the mayor-council form, the primary policymaking role is shared by the city council and the mayor (Structure of Municipal Government, …show more content…
This agenda item was one that I also discussed with the city manager during the interview. At the city council meeting a council member challenged the fire department on the decision to bring up the need for an additional fire fighter now when the matter could have been addressed in the upcoming budget plans. The council member felt that this issue would have been better suited being addressed and documented in the request to extend the budget to incorporate the salary of the additional hire. During the interview the city manager reiterated what she had stated during the council meeting. Her stance was that given the amount of time and paperwork it takes to find and hire another firefighter, waiting for the budget could mean that the city would not be able to hire the firefighter until September or October of 2014. If the council took action now to approve the motion to hire the additional employee, the fire department could start the paperwork that was necessary and have the fire fighter start around the time that the new budget would go into effect. After her explanation of the issue the council moved to approve the hire of the additional …show more content…
The agreement would provide a basis from which the county and the city could sufficiently maintain the trail through cooperative means without duplication of work. When this issue was discussed by the city manager the mayor confirmed that the matter had been reviewed by the city attorney before asking the council if they would like to make a motion on the issue. Because this issue had been carried over from a previous meeting the city attorney had already had a chance to review the issue and ensure that the memorandum of understanding was a feasible venture. The council moved to execute the memorandum of understanding between Newton County Trail-Path Foundation, Inc. and the City of Oxford to be effective immediately (Newton Trails,
The fourth chapter of City Politics by Dennis R. Judd & Todd Swanstrom covers the rise of "Reform Politics" with many local governments during the first half of the 1900s as a way to combat the entrenched political machines that took control of many large city governments in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Over the course of the chapter, Judd & Swanstrom quickly cover the history of the "reform movement" with different examples of how the reform movement affected city politics in different areas.
The municipal system experienced a steady growth for several decades following the establishment of responsible municipal government in Ontario with the Baldwin Act of 1849 (Frisken 30). International interest was generated in 1954 with the creation of Metropolitan Toronto, the first major structural change in the system. Yet, it was not until’ 1967 that the Ontario Committee on Taxation recommended that the rest of Ontario be restructured in regional governments similar to the structure of Metropolitan Toronto (Frisken 30). As a result of the recommendation was the creation of ten regional...
Municipal control or an alternative delivery method? This is the question that has intrigued all levels of local government and created intense debates between taxpayers across municipalities. The services that municipalities provide are often vital to the existence of a local area. The issues of accountability, cost savings, quality of service and democracy often arise when choosing the best options to deliver services to a municipal area. In recent years the concepts of privatization, alternative service delivery and public-private partnerships are often promoted as ways cut down on overburdened annual city budgets and promote a higher quality of service to citizens. Municipalities have historically always provided basic services such as fire protection, water purification/treatment and recreational facilities. However, would private companies or another municipality be able to better deliver the same services more efficiently or at a lower cost? The city or town often provides a political grass roots approach to most local problems. Municipalities are better positioned and have a wider scope to provide services to their constituents in order to ensure quality of service that does not erode accountability and transparency, or drive the municipality deeper into debt.
This helps to ensure that the residents get the services they need in a more effective way since they can make the local leaders accountable. This would be more difficult if the local leaders were handling large counties with many residents. However, in the case of Texas, it has too many branches of local government. This brings about more challenges to service delivery than benefits. One of the ways this happens is through increasing the bureaucratic processes. The addition of an extra layer of government such as through local governments only increases the hurdles the citizens have between them and service delivery. Another problem arises with regards to the ability of the many branches to handle specialized services. Some of the commonly needed services by residents include water provision, garbage collection, sewage management, flood prevention, among others (Flores et al.). These require resources that may not be available to the smaller branches of the local government. Therefore, consolidation of some of these local governments would help to improve efficiency in the service
The government consisted of a central state government and local governments. State governments were made up of a governor and bicameral legislature. Officials were annually elected by white, free men who were also church members. Local government consisted of town meetings, where all white male Church members who owned property gathered regularly to decide matters of local importance.
The United States of America is one of the most powerful nation-states in the world today. The framers of the American Constitution spent a great deal of time and effort into making sure this power wasn’t too centralized in one aspect of the government. They created three branches of government to help maintain a checks and balance system. In this paper I will discuss these three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, for both the state and federal level.
The relationship between a local government and its people is typically a combined form of stability, as well as discordant moments of tension and rising-to-dramatic change. More specifically, the political climate of the local government differs depending on how those people view the three aspects of their governmental calls and needs: rights and responsibility of the people, obligations of their government, and limits on the local governmental authority.
The city’s budget crisis was not a surprise, the City Manager had forecasted the shortfall and brought it to the attention of the city council. Based on the organizational structure, the City Manager clearly had more knowledge and information about the city’s budget, which was his source of power. However, the city council actually controls the resources (money in this case) and how and where to distribute the resource. Both, the City Manager and city council possess authority and power that neither want to relinquish; as a result, the employees suffered. Smithville city leaders needed to come together at the onset of the budget crisis and work together in a direct democratic fashion. When leaders come together and synthesize facts and resources, organizational members can increase the power they exert within an organization (Morgan, 2006). The budget crisis could potentially have been avoided had city leaders made an appeal to the public, explained the situation and offered a reasonable solution to the problem. Moreover, the transparency would have relieved some tension between the City Manager, city council, and the three labor unions. Because the city was not transparent and forthcoming with union leaders, the city negotiators enter the negotiation process giving members false hope of receiving salary and benefit increases when there were none to give. In summary, given the current situation, the City Manager needed to exert his expert power on the budget issue, join alliance with the union leaders, and push the city council to change city charter to implement the sales tax, which would have potentially off-set the budget
Modern Bureaucracy in the United States serves to administer, gather information, conduct investigations, regulate, and license. Once set up, a bureaucracy is inherently conservative. The reason the bureaucracy was initiated may not continue to exist as a need in the future. The need or reason may change with a change in the times and the culture needs. A bureaucracy tends to make decisions that protect it and further it’s own existence, possibly apart from the wishes of the populace. It may not consistently reflect what might be optimal in terms of the needs and wants of the people. Local governments employ most of the United States civil servants. The 14 cabinet departments in the U.S. are run day-to-day by career civil servants, which have a great deal of discretionary authority.
When the constitution of the United States was formed, the framers specifically designed the American Government structure to have checks and balances and democracy. To avoid autocracy the President was give power to preside over the executive branch of the government and as commander –in –chief, in which a clause was put into place to give the president the power to appeal any sudden attacks against America, without waiting for a vote from congress. While the president presides over the executive branch there has been ongoing debate over the role of the president in regards to foreign policy. Should foreign policy issues be an executive function by the president or should congress play a much greater role? With the sluggishness of our democracy, foreign policy issues most times need quicker response compared to how domestic policy is decided in the United States. Many believe to maintain openness and democracy both the president and congress need to agree on how the United States handles issue abroad. Although the president has been given much power, his or her power and decisions are sometimes limited based on decisions by congress and challenged and shaped by various bureaucracies throughout the government system. I shall discuss the Presidents role and the role of governmental bureaucracies (Department of Defense, Department of State and the National Security Council) that work together and sometimes not together to shape and implement American foreign Policy.
Similar to a well oiled machine, a political system is concerned with processing the demands of a society to then provide the goods and services demanded while ensuring its own establishment (Berg 1). However, considering that the idea of a political system is a social construct, its form is subject to a myriad of complex and conflicting forces. The most palpable force is that of a city’s financial needs. Any locale has the burden of satisfying the demands of its constituents with limited resources. In addition to having limited resources, urban cities are also usually comprised of many diverse ethnic backgrounds with different demands and needs. Equitable distribution of limited resources to different ethnic and social backgrounds could have
In the beginning of our history a focus on a stronger state and local government can be apparent, but then a major shift occurs with Chief Justice Marshall. Since his time in office till our present time today, a shift of a weak national government and a stronger local and state governments to a stronger national government and weaker local and state government is evident. As our political system has changed and evolved in the past couple centuries, one can be assured that it will continue to evolve and improve in the near
Kevin B. Smith, Alan Greenblatt, and John Buntin, Governing states and localities: First Edition (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press), 2005, 95.
There are two kinds of municipalities (city/town). General- Law powers are defined by the states Government code. City government establishes municipal policy and enacts and implements local ordinances. City governments are responsible for providing services which directly affect the lives of their residents like police ...
“It has been said that one of the greatest political problems of the time is to reconcile representative institutions with good government.” With this problem in mind, the cabinet form of government, which is nearly synonymous with the parliamentary form of government, has been established to lessen the gap between representative institutions and good government or, if possible, make them one in the same through its unification of powers.