The Scoop: City administrator can be eliminated

I’m not going to harp on the conspiracy to oust city administrator Herb Llewellyn, but I do want to take a moment to chat about the city administrator position in general.

Here’s an idea I think the city should explore. Make the job of McMinnville mayor a full-time position and do away with the city administrator position completely. It may seem far-fetched at first, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.

An obvious place to start this discussion is with the recently departed Llewellyn. For reasons that haven’t been disclosed, Llewellyn fell out of favor with the city brass and they wanted him gone. But as we’ve just seen, this can be tricky. Instead of simply firing the guy, city officials concocted an elaborate story about him being homesick for Kansas and forced him to resign.

If there was a full-time mayor with no city administrator, McMinnville’s head honcho would get a straightforward job evaluation every four years. A job well done would be rewarded with four more years in office. A job done poorly would likely mean it’s time to clean out your desk because voters don’t take kindly to mediocrity.

And, as coincidence has it, that four-year timeframe isn’t far from what Mayor Royce Davenport called the normal lifespan of a city administrator. In talking about Llewellyn’s departure, Davenport told me Tuesday night most city administrators don’t last more than five years in one place before they move on.

That leads to my second point, which is the importance of having local people in positions of prominence. If city administrators come and go from town to town, chances are our next choice will come from Bowling Green, Ky., or Valdosta, Ga.

That means an “outsider,” and some folks just cringe at that word, will be top dog in McMinnville. About the time we get to know him (or her), it’s time for them to leave, or get booted out of town.

With a full-time mayor carrying out city administrator duties, that person would come from right here at home. Suddenly this change is sounding better all the time. (Or, as a side note, if city officials want to hire a local administrator, they could rewrite the job description to fit local qualifications.)

A full-time mayor acting as city administrator wouldn’t be held hostage by a seven-member board. Make just four of them mad and we’ve just seen what happens.

It also makes sense to mention our county government where the top official, County Executive Kenneth Rogers, is elected. That’s somewhat of a reassuring fact.

I know I feel more comfortable with a general vote of the Warren County population deciding our top executive than the county commission making that choice. Truth be told, I feel more comfortable with 24 sixth-graders making decisions than our county commission. But I digress.

My point is it would benefit the city to elevate its mayor to full-time status. Most people think Davenport is a full-time employee anyway with a Llewellyn-type salary of $76,000. They’re stunned to discover McMinnville’s mayor earns around $10,000 a year.

A full-time mayor would help eliminate back-stabbing and behind-the-scenes mutinies at city hall because a handful of aldermen couldn’t get rid of the city administrator. That chore would shift to the voters of McMinnville.

If popular vote is good enough to elect the U.S. president, it’s good enough to elect a full-time mayor for McMinnville. And as an added bonus, it might reduce the number of ridiculous cover-up stories we’re forced to endure.

James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at editor@southernstandard.com.