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Show Good Men vs Form Of Gov't. Merle Riche The cry of "good government" will be heard all throughout this valley for the next few weeks. This old world has been going around long enough for nearly every form of government to have be n tried. Salt Lake County need not be a battleground for the. different tvoes automatically Dy virtue oi receiving re-ceiving the greatest number of votes. He is usually the ceremonial head of the government but has no more administrative duties than have his colleagues on the council. This plan is used by many cities and has some notable achievements to its credit and so long as good men can work together, to-gether, there is no reason why it should not succeed. There is another plan, the city manager plan. This consists of a small elective council and a professional chief executive that is chosen by it. The council does legislative work and the manager all the administering. The manager's man-ager's term of office may be for a given number of years or until the council wishes to make a change. On the other hand, the manager expects from the council free hand in administration, appointments, ap-pointments, removals and the executive ex-ecutive end of the government. Herein lies the danger. But as we said in the beginning, almost any kind of government will work with good men at the helm. of government. None has yet been found perfect. The important thing is the caliber of men standing in the administrative ad-ministrative and legislative positions. po-sitions. Nevertheless, there are those who would like to change our form of government here in Salt Lake City, To govern cities there is the so-called stronarmayor type of government, the weak -mayor type, the commission plan and the city-manager city-manager plan. You might say we have the weak-mayor type in our city, the original form of municipal muni-cipal government in our country. Here the mayor is a member of the council, with some administra-taive administra-taive powers, but his authority is not extensive or complete and he is primarily an honorific personage per-sonage and an administrative figurehead. The strong-mayor type would give the chief executive a wide authority over the administration of city departments and programs while the council would confine itself to legislation and general surveillance. His powers, the mayor's, would include direction of all municipal departments, submission sub-mission of budgets and programs to the council, the power of appointment ap-pointment and removal, with the more important appointments requiring council approval, a chairmanship of or participation in council meetings, power of veto, though the council mav overrule by a two-thirds or three-fourths vote, the duty of representing the city and acting as its ceremonial head. In the commission plan, all of the members of the city council are administrators of the public business as well as legislators, with the posts divided into public affairs, accounts and finance, public pub-lic safety, streets and public im-- im-- provements, and parks and public property, etc. The terms of office are staggered so that there will be some degree of continuity. In some cities candidates run for particular administrative posts, but more often they are elected to department headships by majority ma-jority vote of the council itself. . The plan is aimed at securing a businesslike management of public affairs and at getting businessmen into local government. Candidates are usually nominated by citizen petition or on a nonpartisan ballot. The safeguards of recall and the initiative and referendum are-sometimes are-sometimes provided. One member of the council usually acts as mayor being chosen by popular election or |