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Thursday, August 1, 2013

On Mayor Kevin Johnson and the latest strong-mayor push Sacramento News & Review -

Sacramento News & Review - On Mayor Kevin Johnson and the latest strong-mayor push - Bites - Opinions - August 1, 2013:

On Mayor Kevin Johnson and the latest strong-mayor push

The latest strong-mayor push features different players—but still presumes to know the answers

By  
cosmog@newsreview.com

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Call it Strong Mayor 4.0. Some of the players are different, but the gist is the same: Backers want an executive mayor with greater power to write the budget and control the city bureaucracy.
Organizers of the new initiative—now going by the name Sacramento Tomorrow—say beyond that basic principle, their initiative is a blank slate.
“We are trying to be really genuine in saying none of this is preordained,” said David Nagler, a former lobbyist and biotech executive who was hired on to organize the effort.
How strong should the strong mayor be? How deep into layers of the bureaucracy should his power to hire and fire reach? Should other reforms, such as a redistricting commission or an ethics commission, be part of the package? These are all to be determined in Sacramento Tomorrow’s outreach process, said Nagler.
“We are going to go out in a broad-based way, talking to folks who have been excluded from the process in the past,” he explained. Only after that will the Sacramento City Council be asked to put a strong-mayor proposal on the ballot next year.
This time, the votes will probably be there.
Nagler said this effort is not related toKevin “Boss” Johnson or his previous attempts to push strong mayor through. Certainly, there are some holdovers from Johnson’s old gang on the Sacramento

Maybe the problem is that the Mayor doesn't know his own strength:  The Rise and Fall of Kevin Johnson http://bit.ly/15WnS99