I want to apologize for not posting yesterday. I don’t know why I forgot to, I just did. I’m trying to be a little more diligent, honestly.
I’ve been working on learning how city government works, as it’s not really a subject I’ve focused on in the past. I spent all my time looking at the national level, where I honestly believe no individual citizen can affect change, rather than looking at our local level where I think a citizen’s abilities to change their surroundings is a little more significant. I’m changing that focus now, as I said Monday, and I’m pouring my attention into our city’s structure.
Portland, Oregon is the last large city in the United States that has a city commission government. What this means is that Portland is run not by a mayor with a city council under them, but by a group of commissioners who share an equal amount of power. The mayor in this form of government is basically another commission member with a symbolic title. The four commissioners and mayor make up the city council, who acts as the executive and legislative branch, as well as a quasi-judicial branch. In Portland there is a sixth elected official, the city auditor. The auditor works towards ethical and transparent government activity.
Each of the commissioners and the mayor are assigned different responsibilities and titles. What I find strange is that the titles assigned to a commissioner do not necessarily denote what they work with. For example, the Commissioner of Public Works doesn’t always have any public works bureaus in their portfolio.
Overall, I find our system of city government to be interesting, and I think it’s fascinating that we have a system of government that is unique to us as far as large cities go.
Tagged : city commission government, portland, oregon, power
Posted by Wes Mueller on 11/13 at 02:27 PM
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