Proposal to centralize City Hall power resurfaces

The most significant proposal for changing how City Hall works in close to 20 years gets an initial discussion Wednesday before the Charter Commission.

The proposal from a group of close to a dozen people with significant City Hall experience would centralize lines of authority over department heads under a city administrator serving at the pleasure of the mayor.

"The key thing in our view is that we get away from the 14-boss problem in Minneapolis," said former Council Member Paul Ostrow, a supporter, referring to the council and mayor.

It's a retweaking of a proposal that last surfaced in 2009 when it was proposed as part of a package of three charter amendments. But the two other, more controversial proposals overshadowed the administrator plan, which intrigued some charter commissioners who thought it ought to get more discussion.

Among those who developed the proposal are former Mayor Donald Fraser, former Council Member Joan Niemiec, former Budget Director Jay Kiedrowski, and former Congressman Martin Olav Sabo.

The administrator would serve as the boss of city department heads, who now are answerable mainly to the City Council, but also to the mayor. The mayor would propose an administrator at the start of each term, The Executive Committee and City Council could both block the nominee, but only the mayor could originate a nominee. The mayor could fire the administrator at any time, but only after consulting the Executive Committee.

Much the same process would work when the administrator named department heads, who would serve at the administrator's pleasure. But a department head could be fired only with the mayor's approval after the Executive Committee was consulted. The administrator would annually set objectives for department heads, give them performance reviews and recommend their pay hikes. The less-powerful existing position of city coordinator would be abolished.