PALMER -- The City Council veered away Monday from adopting a strong-mayor government in Palmer but agreed the mayor's position should be a full-time job.
"I wish I had known that there was an alternative before this was proposed," Mayor John Combs told the Council at a Monday work session. "I'm very comfortable with it, and I think the Council can be too."
The City Council met to discuss a proposal Combs introduced July 12 that would hand day-to-day management of city operations to the mayor. Combs, elected mayor last October, said the city has long passed the days in which presiding over meetings and attending a few ribbon cuttings are all that's required of the city's foremost elected official.
These days, he said, the mayor represents the city before other elected bodies, such as the Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly, the Legislature and state agencies, and federal representatives in Washington, D.C.
"Every time I leave my desk, it's frustrating, and it bothers me, because there's so much that needs to get done, and if we could get it done, it would make the city a better place," Combs said. "There's stuff coming at you all the time and especially legislatively. I think we're getting left behind, and we can't afford to be left behind."
Palmer civic government currently operates under a council-manager form, in which the Council makes policies and the city manager, Tom Healy, oversees city operations. Combs suggested moving to a strong mayor form, in which the mayor has veto power and acts as the city's chief executive officer instead of a city manager. Combs suggested changing the city manager's position to a city administrator.
Council members, when they discussed the measure July 12, said they believed the city was ready to change but wanted more time to consider the proposal before deciding whether to place it on the Oct. 4 city ballot.
At the Monday work session, several Council members said they preferred keeping the strong manager and changing the mayor's compensation from $200 for each meeting to a 40-hour-a-week salary.
"I really want to do the right thing here, and I think the right thing is keeping the form of government we have, and ... beefing up on the administrative form of government," Palmer Councilman Tony Pippel said Monday. "The top of the city requires all of these skills now; we need a gifted administrator, ... and we also need someone who can go 'glad-hand and hustle,' if you will. I think we need that presence."
If the Council changes the mayor's job from figurehead to a full-time position, it won't have to go to voters for approval, city attorney Jack Snodgrass said. The changes could be made with the approval of five Council members.
If the mayor's position is changed, Snodgrass said, city law will have to be changed to reflect the new duties, hours and salary of the office holder, but they're changes the Council can make.
Council members discussed adding duties such as "intergovernmental liaison" and lobbying to the mayor's list of expected duties but didn't set a salary. Salaries from full-time mayors around the state, which ranged from more than $100,000 to just over $70,000, were more than they wanted to accept, Pippel said.
Combs said he'd be bringing forward another proposal to change the mayor's duties and salary as soon as the changes could be drawn up.
Daily News reporter Rindi White can be reached at rwhite@adn.com or 352-6709.
