The following is a long read (over 5000 words) on my take on strong mayor powers. I started this post back in the Summer of 2022 but never got around to finishing it. Other events, additional Toronto powers (1/3 override), John Tory resigning, housing pledges and of course the announcement on June 16 2023 of it scaling to 26 other cities got me back to this post. As a result of this fragmented writing process this post is somewhat disconnected from itself and I may have missed some iterative change to the powers or process as I wrote sections months ago. I decided to post it because why not?

TLDR version – Although I don’t think that Strong Mayor Powers are needed, I support the new Strong Mayors in principle. I do not support the 1/3 override, that should be done away with but overall strong mayors is an evolution of municipal governance that will change how cities are run and has the potential to reinvigorate local democracy.

Intro

First, how this legislation came about is somewhat laughable. Experts agree that strong mayors won’t help the housing crisis in Ontario and it wasn’t discussed during the election campaign. That being said many governments have campaigned (or not campaigned) on issues in the past and then implemented policies that was different than what they said (electoral reform springs to mind and is topical). Frankly this is no different and is the bane of party politics. That being said there is in my opinion, a method to the madness – Strong Mayors give the Provincial government someone to blame when the housing crisis doesn’t go away.

On Rose City Politics they discussed Strong Mayors. I described the commentary in one chat as borderline hysterical. It is unfortunately because this changing political system in any way could be good for local democracy, it could re-invigorate an apathetic electorate and potentially creates new forms of accountability.

A few years ago, progressives were excited about Ranked Ballots (now done away with) and how they were going to transform how municipalities engage and elect representatives, this despite the potential impacts on incumbents. Calls for electoral reform ring from on high at a federal level without action as the incentives are if you win, you hold power and can govern as you see fit. This change is just “the Right” doing the same thing.

Are these powers needed? Probably not, are they going to be present going forward, absolutely. Any change to how we elect and govern will have impacts, those impacts will not be immediately seen or understood. What I would argue has happened is that progressives would much rather wring their hands and scream tyrant than think through how this could be to their advantage.

Context

The power of Mayors is a relatively understudied area of Canadian research. Dr. Kate Graham’s (more Liberal candidate in London) dissertation delved into this topic. There are a wide range of gaps in literature on this subject and the fact that Canadian municipalities are generally weak (from a constitutional and revenue generation perspective) hamstrings mayors (and their councils) as a starting point. Depending on their context mayors can already wield wide ranging powers or they can be marginalized by council opposition.

Earlier in 2022 there was a call to empower mayors written in Policy Opinions IRPP. Previous expansions of mayoral powers in Toronto was put in place under Dalton McGuinty and allow the Toronto Mayor and the appointed executive committee additional powers that other mayors don’t have.

This chat from Brian Kelcey a leading urban thinker in Canada with Politico Canada also provides context:

Can you point us to a best case example of this system in the U.S.? 

No, because that’s the trick question that torques the Canadian debate on cities and mayors so often. While the TV version of strong mayors is certainly associated with the U.S., strong mayors don’t even make up a majority of American mayoralties; they’re only dominant in the largest U.S. cities.

But in healthy democracies in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe, a strong majority of cities are operating on some sort of “stronger-mayor” model, either with directly elected executives, or where the mayor is chief executive by virtue of leading a council’s cabinet.

No one is claiming it’s “the end of democracy” in Greater Manchester because Mayor ANDY BURNHAM directly hires regional transit leaders. No one is claiming it is the end of Seoul’s democracy because Mayor OH SE-HOON proposes the budget before it is debated.

On the contrary: when urban-minded Canadians talk up examples of dynamic, engaged city-building, nine times out of 10, they’re picking examples from “strong-mayor” cities without even realizing it. And it isn’t a coincidence….

Politico Canada

You should read the whole chat but in the United States 18 of 30 of the largest cities in the US have Strong-Mayor governance. When we think of progressive action on climate, sanctuary cities (both for illegal immigrants and women seeking abortions), urban revitalization (and the gentrification that can and does accompany it) etc. these mayors are able lead in these areas in many cases due to the powers they wield.

In the mid-2012 there were 50 miles of bike lanes in the City of Detroit a decade later there is over 255 miles of lanes (plus greenways and other off road pathways). This isn’t all the Mayor, but it needed Mayoral support and when the 2018 saw push back and potential backsliding it led to advocacy to Mayor to support the work. Mayor Duggan was reelected 2021 (not just due to this this issue) and the work continued and accelerated due to COVID impacts and success.

Strong mayors probably aren’t needed in a village of 5,000 people but cities of 100,000+ probably shouldn’t be governed as a village of 5,000 the needs as challenges are more complex and require leadership to solve. Assuming the 100,000 population threshold holds true for the scaling of strong mayor powers, this will cover 47 of the 444 municipalities in Ontario and approximately 9.1 million people out of Ontario’s 14.5 million. So for about 400 municipalities and 5 million people there won’t see a change. A strong mayor forces leadership onto the head of Council, they become more accountable and responsible for the issues of a community.

 

Why do it?

As I teased in the opening, I believe the strong mayor powers are designed to give the Ford Government cover in the future when the housing crisis hasn’t gone away. Between the Strong Mayor powers and Bill 23 – Building Homes Faster (and subsequent bills) how cities regulate home construction are rapidly changing. They are opening up the Greenbelt, defanging conversation authorities, removing fees and charges on new and existing development and empowering mayors to push through zoning and other regulatory changes. You can see the links they are drawing these two separate pieces of legislation.

Yet during the municipal election we saw mayoral candidates offer pledges to build tens of thousands of homes across the Province. Chris Holt proposed to build 25,000 homes in 10 years, Josh Morgan in London – 50,000 units in 10 years (approved by Council at 47,000) while Mark Suttcliffe in Ottawa is going to build 100,000 homes. Those who were elected they have to deliver. These numbers require the doubling of construction in their communities, but they have already played into the Ford Government hands.

At the same time the Federal government just announced new immigration targets. Although announced in November, the specific targets rising was not a surprise. The only way Canada will remain economically competitive over the coming decade and admitting immigrants at unprecedented levels. This will mean that pressures on housing in major urban areas will remain in place. Where does this lead?

It means the housing crisis isn’t going away. What you have now is a Provincial government that can say – we gave cities powers and cut red tape, but you didn’t deliver. It is your mayor fault that there isn’t more housing and things aren’t more affordable. If you want to get conspiratorial and dig into developer connections to the PCs – obviously someone is going to make money doing this but that is a nice side benefit. All is being done, is downloading a province wide crisis to municipalities. If municipalities succeed and build housing, the province can take credit, if they fail it isn’t the province’s fault.

Most importantly whether voters hold the province or their local mayors accountable is an unknown at this point, but in my opinion, it won’t really matter.  

On Democracy

One of the principal arguments around the Strong Mayor powers is that it was undemocratic. The premise of this is that councils are in theory a group of equals and the mayor is the head of council. How this operated in practice often varies by community. Structures and norms of the various councils matter in this context, deputy mayors as an example, in many communities have additional responsibilities, in Windsor’s case they are just a rotating seat filler when the mayor is out of town.

The mayor receives the most votes during an election in most cities, often by large margins. It is true that in particular wards or sections of a city a councilor may get more votes, but does that give the democratic authority of a ward councilor to override a mayor on a local issue? I would argue no.

Councillors are elected to represent their wards and advocate for local issues. Many agree that as a group that councillors need to look beyond just their wards but they do not have a mandate for city wide issues, the mayor does. Nothing stops them from building consensus and if needed, attempting to reconcile with the mayor’s differing views. They can also get their peers to support them to pass a by-law or budget item that impacts their specific community or even the whole city without veto risk when not a provincial priority. This doesn’t change under the strong mayor system.

The mayor can now table by-laws and budget items that align with municipal priorities without going through the normal administrative process that could impact a ward or the whole city. The fact that they can expeditated an issue for a vote doesn’t not undermine the democratic process.

If issues are being railroaded against a councillor’s community views, then the willingness mobilize your community and council colleagues is required. Go look at US strong mayor cities and how protests and mobilization occur on a key issue. Organizations like ACORN, Progress Toronto, the London Urban League mobilize their members in Canadian Cities on important local issues. Councillors can absolutely play a role with residents to craft organizations that are politically effective and pragmatic in their scope. The willingness of councillors to pull the trigger, bring community out, go to the media is all part of an effective democracy and arguably has been suppressed because councillors and the mayor were “equal” – councillors didn’t want to rock the boat!

The elephant in the room is that voter turnout in municipal elections is bad. By placing more accountability in the mayor’s hands, it has the potential to increase the stakes around mayoral races. The ability for mayors to steer their cities more directly in their preferred direction enhances the power of the office – potentially enticing better candidates. This raises the stakes for elections. Elections that are considered more important by the electorate have higher turnout. The misuse of a veto, a heavy-handed firing of administrative staff members, a mayor who miscalculates on the mood of the community and the expedition of an issue – all create potential political wedges and issues that can be campaigned on.

What Can Strong Mayors Do?

You can read the full legislation right here. A good summary of what is in the bill is here but I am going to look at a few specific items and pull them apart.

Hiring and Firing: The Mayor under this legislation will be able to hire and fire the CAO as well as a number of non-legislatively mandated positions within the City, as well as the ability to re-organize the city’s departments. The extreme view that has been put out there is that whenever a mayor gets elected or gets are report they don’t like, they fire someone. This isn’t likely to happen for a few reasons:

• Cities are already facing municipal staffing shortages leading to pay raises particularly at senior levels of talent as boomers retire out of municipal workforce. A constant churn of senior municipality whenever the mayor hears bad news is unlikely to happen.
• Institutional memory and project timing that crosses electoral calendars incentives mayors to not clean house when elected.
• A hiring takes months to complete, to lose that time more than once during a term could be politically damaging.
• Because this is being done solely by the mayor, it likely means it won’t be done in in-camera of council. The mayor alone will have to justify and quantify the decision. Council can then demand information about severances to bring that information into the public realm. Freedom of information request can still bring complaints to light – despite the broken system.
• Firing senior administrators without causes carries significant financial cost to the municipality.

The obvious rebuttal is that administration will just become cowtoe to the “dear leader”. It is possible but that brings risks for the administrator, that might not be true because now as the mayor will be the sole responsible party for their removal.

Yes, you must do your job well and have the confidence of the mayor, but odds are administrators don’t want to shift jobs every 4 years. So being truly unbiased, speaking truth to power, and sticking to the letter of law/policy/expertise/data is away to longevity regardless of political environment. If you are just a yes man, your removal is more likely should there be a political shift. Turnover will also have to be balanced against the delays and political challenges that could emerge from turning over key organizational leaders on a regular basis.

1/3 of Council Support: This is the one element that I don’t agree with. This is the Rob Ford amendment, which is likely in place after the neutering of the Premier’s brother while he was Mayor of Toronto. In essence in areas of provincial priorities the mayor can pass by-laws/motions which are designated with only 1/3 support of council, including their vote. This is undemocratic and should be repealed.

Many bills pass with bad elements, it can be changed in the future. There is a significant political risk in using this 1/3 override for a mayor and that could spill over into the provincial realm if this power is abused by mayors. If a mayor does use this power, particularly early on, it will be a province wide story. This nuclear option potentially carries a lot of risk, overriding most councilors could sour the relationship creating an opposition majority faction on a council. As there are many issues that are not “provincial priority” that can’t be vetoed there are pathways to derail a mayors agenda.

Mayor Sets the Budget: Let’s first acknowledge that the majority of municipal budgets are structurally set due to collective bargaining, provincial mandates, asset management plans, 10 year capital plans, reserve allocations etc. So, what we are talking about is the digressionary sliver of the budget that remains. Mayors already have disproportionate influences of the budget as their agenda generally gets engrained in the budget through council direction with other items showing up at budget time-based council request or referrals.

Administration is still going to write what is in the budget, the biggest difference is going to be that the mayor gets to set some priorities and pick what is in the approved vs not-approved budget lines. This results in a couple of things:

• The budget will be tabled by the mayor not by administration. This means it is a far more political document in its nature.
• This document could still go to a budget review committee. You will note Mayor Dilken’s didn’t sit on the committee last year in theory he could propose his budget, the committee could offer amendments and then it proceeds to the approval or veto.
• As the mayor is making the choice around recommended and not-recommended items are, he is making choices around which councilors are getting what, creating natural political wedges. This could create unique alliance opportunities to amend or elevate certain ward issues.
• Nothing stops councilors from requesting items to be referred to budget during the year. This would force the mayor to decide if included in the budget as well as ensuring that administrative costing of the items to allow council to attempt to amend the budget with this item.
• Council can still offer amendments and if able override a veto if they have the support.

Likely what you will see is a similar structure of the current budget in Windsor, with the mayor approved items in one document, then a list of other referred or non-selected items that are costed by administration. This second document allows the façade of cuts to reach a 0% tax increase to be maintained, interested parties could point to deferred enhancements or cuts in the second document as a pathway to reduce to tax rate further or enhance services beyond the mayor’s proposal.

The process is a bit different with the mayor tabling the budget, a council only getting a 30 days to review and offer amendments, then the mayor gets to decide if he will veto amendments (when able) within 10 days of the amendments being passed. If vetoed, council has 15 days to attempt an override with a 2/3 majority. All of this must start by February 1^st.

The Veto and Provincial Priorities: The veto is only usable on provincial priorities and 2 days written notice is required before a veto is used. This can create a pressure cooker political environment where a mayor declares and there is 48 hours of scrambling and media coverage. The idea that a mayor will be vetoing items right and left is likely overstated.

The mayor still holds his vote on regular by-laws and can only veto when an item aligns with provincial priorities. Although we don’t know the exact “provincial priorities” yet, the mayors can recommend items being added to this list and can add issues or elements related to provincial priorities to the council agenda. Is a mayor going to want to be constantly adding to provincial priorities for their city? Are you going to be a mayor who cries wolf to the province for every issue to get a veto, or does that make you look weak?

The mayor can also table items related to provincial priorities at council meetings, in other words add items to the agenda. These items still need to be voted on and in theory the 1/3 voting threshold could be used on these items but simply adding items of provincial priority and direct administration to prioritize certain items so they can moved through the municipal process is hardly a devastating attack on democracy. I would argue mayors already provide significant sway on when items appear on meeting agendas this isn’t much different.

We don’t know how liberally these provincial priorities will be applied but I am going to bet it is going to be a narrow set of issue areas. Playground construction, fixing potholes, bike lane placement or garbage collection are not going to be a provincial priority which means it isn’t eligible for veto or prioritization. This means collaboration from the mayor’s office is still needed on issues and they will have to balance their budget power and vetoes against that collaboration.

Councillors: One thing the legislation doesn’t really do is change the role of councillors from a legislative perspective. Certainly, the Mayor has new powers, but it didn’t directly constrain the power of Council on a wide range of issues. The Mayor could appoint some of them to Chair a board or committee and that could have some remuneration implications (not in the case of the City of Windsor) but councilors can still ask council questions, offer amendments, serve on committees where work actually gets done, and question administration. In areas of provincial priority, the mayor can expedite issues and direct administration but that isn’t going to cover most issues that councilors see on a week to weekly basis.

The primary difference is the power dynamic between mayors and council has changed. For some communities not a lot may change as broad consensus is achieved. For others, councillors may have to choose clearer alignment or opposition with the Mayor’s position. If the mayor isn’t giving you anything in the budget, that is a story that you have to sell. For the shrinking media, a “mayor’s budget” makes it easier to sell sensational headlines as a proposed closure of a library in the “mayor’s budget” is now his/her idea.

The question becomes, which councillors are willing to fall in or step out of line and are the councillors supported or resourced to be effective oppositions and checks on strong mayors?

What does it mean?

The question is, is it doomsdays and death of local democracy or is it something else. Hilda Macdonald on AM800 had some good comments, what she described was an extreme scenario in my opinion. It is true in a small town a mayor could get elected by a single interest group but in cities over 100,000 it is unlikely. Election finance laws at a municipal level don’t allow direct donations from developers, businesses and/or unions. A mayor in a city of 100,000+ is going to always going to have many special interests that he/she listens too and considers. For the reasons outlined above, it is unlikely that a mayor is going to go completely rogue and if they do, voters have final say in a few years.

On Power

A potential unforeseen side effect is that Mayors are now in a better position to advocate for provincial and federal support as they now more closely hold the levers in their own communities. Academic research from Yale has argued that strong mayor systems in federal nations empower cities and enable them to be stronger voices in their countries/provinces despite the lack of constitutional recognition. It legitimizes mayors as their projects and visions will be more rapidly implemented, leading to different dynamics in negotiating with upper levels of government. You can see this advocacy already occurring around new fiscal framework, there is the potential it gets louder as mayors ease into new powers.

But this idea of empowering mayors has led to several conversations about the type of person who runs for office regardless of level of government. The role of councillor and mayor kind of sucks, I sat on the compensation committee, we asked questions about the role, I looked at the numbers, it isn’t worth for many people. This is partially why we struggle to get diversity of candidates. But think about what these powers do to the mayoral role and if you grab that golden ring during an election, you now will be able to implement your vision for the city.

Think about competent politicians who have stepped away from the council table or left for an upper level of government. What could have a Brian Masse or Irek Kusmierczyk have done in the mayor’s chair (hypothetically thinking if they ran and won under these rules) if they knew they could have implemented their vision for the city during a mayoral term. Would Bill Marra been willing to step away from the hospital to run again? Lots of talk about how the best don’t run, or if they run and win, they then leave after a term or two. There is nothing wrong with that but suddenly the Mayor’s office has real power (or they don’t and this is overblown) and that is attractive to the type of person who runs for office.

If the easiest pathway to that power is through a council term or two, then suddenly the field at the council level could also be strengthened. Sure, there will always be councilors and mayors with a range of skills, abilities, and ambitions but the fact that the mayor can now more directly wield certain power is an incentive to run for office.

Role of Councillors

Councillor’s roles as representatives of their communities and advocates don’t change. The incentives due to the strong mayor powers do change the dynamics around the table but being an advocate for your community is still important. Cultivating a good relationship with the mayor may be important as he now holds the purse strings so to speak, but that was always true.

Most of the strong mayor powers only matter if the mayor is in a weak position or lost the confidence of council. The vast majority of councils are surprisingly unified on a majority of issue (you can see my review recorded votes for the 2014-18 term) and the rule is more that an issue passes by a wide margin than a tight vote or the mayor loses. Sure the Mayor “writes the budget” there is now incentive for councillors to actively push back. Outraged that you didn’t get a new playground, your road not getting fixed, there is a clear villain that a councillor can point to.  

I do think that during competitive elections there will be incentives for councillors to potentially align or oppose mayoral candidates. You could even see the beginning of slates or political groupings at a municipal level as a result. This would then spill over into the councils where the alliances could be solidified with committee appointments designated by the mayor – in Windsor rumination isn’t linked to committee appointments.

Fundamentally what I think it means is that councillors “independence will be challenges” and they will have to pick a camp. Are you going to support the mayor or be in opposition. Does this mean that the role of Councillors changes? Yes, but now you must be willing to use all of the tools of political pressure to activate an important local issue.

Is this more work for Councillors, yes. Should they be full time? Yes. In a strong mayor system part time councils are incompatible with holding the mayor to account and conducting the work of their constituents. If Councillors don’t like strong mayor powers, and want to pushback, in 2024 the Council Compensation Committee is supposed to be struck again. Give them the mandate to explore full-time council and changing Ward Boundaries. This will not be a provincial priority and therefore not subject to veto.  

Not Going Away

We are not going back. Even if the PCs were to lose in 2026 is this an issue that is going to be top of mind for a new government. Housing, Education, Health care the Environment are all higher priorities for provincial parties than these strong mayor powers and removing them. I would suspect there will be some tinkering overtime, but we will not be returning to a weak mayor system. Other governments may shift these priorities (climate change) and there may be some creep based on mayoral request but stripping the powers away is a far step.

If this is a new status quo, then people should plan for it. The mayor’s chair becomes a more important prize at a municipal level. We are several years away from an election but in backrooms somewhere someone should be planning. The ability to effectively implement an agenda has grown because of the Strong Mayor powers. All it takes is winning the big chair.

Progressive scoff at wielding these new powers but you must recognize their opponents may not be generous. In the face of an intransigent council, should progressive mayor not use all the tools in their toolbox to move their agenda forward? The culture wars (like on bike lanes) may disappear under a strong mayor, sure if a radical mayor gets elected big changes will happen fast but that now becomes a cudgel to hit extremist candidates. Meanwhile arguably centrist and “boring” candidate who will use the powers in a limited manner with broad agendas will see incremental change on those issues while prioritizing the issues they were elected on.

On Selective Application Powers

Note this didn’t come to pass –I wrote this section in the summer of 2022 when the first announcements were made. 26 largest municipalities have been given strong mayor powers – this includes Patrick Brown, Steven Del Duca, and Andrea Horvath all of whom have no love lost for Premier Ford. At the time of writing Olivia Chow is leading int the polls in the Toronto Mayoral By-election – despite Premier Ford saying a progressive mayor would be a “disaster” for Toronto. I left in this section in as I wrote it.

A few times it has been floated in local circles that the Ford government would only selectively apply strong mayor powers. This is possibly the worst political take I have heard in a long time. First, application of these powers is not articulated in the legislation and isn’t how legislation works unless you are empowering a specific minister to bestow these powers on cities. These are just changes to the municipal act (and Toronto Act) and are applied to municipalities writ large. Selective application would have to be written into the legislation and would guarantee a rupture of provincial/municipal relations across the province.

If it did occur, it would also tell every mayor in the province that the PC government isn’t an honest broker and can’t be reliable partner. Some may say they are already not reliable, but it is their right to change the rules and that is politics. The removal of ranked ballots that caused such outrage in 2018/19, applied to the whole province despite the only municipality to be impacted was mayored by Ed Holder of London, a former Conservative Cabinet Minister (2014-18).

Best case scenario you have cool relationship between the MPP and the Mayor and a potential opposition critic in the mayor’s chair. Worst case scenario, Mayor actively undermines the PC MPP (sort of like what Mayor Dilken’s has done on a few occasions to MP Kusmierczyk). Andrew Horvath in Hamilton? 3 NDP MPPs and 1 PC – same situation. What about Mayor Del Duca in Vaughan – 3 PC MPPs represent Vaughan, how about Ottawa where John Suttcliffe has – 3 Liberals, an NDP and 3 PCs.

It would be starting wars on multiple fronts for no reason while also giving opposition parties ammunition to attack the government with. Better to empower most mayors to “build housing” and then let the voters deal with them in 4 years when not much has changed in that file.

On Housing

In theory the justification of strong mayor powers was to get more housing built quickly. So, what should we watch for?

• Vetoes or overrides of restrictive zoning or attempts by council/councillors to block additional housing units. I think about the debate about the Walkerville Condos or the Fogolar lands.
• Prioritization of city-wide zoning amendments allow more by-right development in existing single-family neighbourhoods.
• New membership of the Planning and Heritage Committee? Although this would require removing members appointed by council or councillors themselves.
• You may see some new incentives or other process to streamline the building of new units brought forward soon.  
• From my understanding Windsor has already restructured its Planned and Building departments but we might still see other shifts in staff and in prioritization.

There may be other things, but I feel like many of the processes are already in place to hopefully move forward housing in a more rapid manner. As a result, I don’t actually expect a lot of things to change regarding housing. The big item is obviously the Sandwich South Study which is still in progress, and I don’t believe can be expedited by the mayor as the work still needs to happen.

Conclusions

Strong Mayors are a solution that only exists in the mind of the provincial government. The housing crisis will not be solved by strong mayor, but responsibility and blame can certainly be shifted to them. Would this be the solution that I put forward, absolutely not, but it has been forced on us. That being said, hundreds of cities around the world including some of the most progressive and forward-thinking ones, are headed by strong mayors. So we can either wallow in “despotic tyranny” or we can plan for a future where mayors are strong, and those we support are able to enact in rapid action agendas that support communities.

How a town of 5,000 people is governed should not be how a city of 100,000+ people should be governed. I am not moved by the idea that councillor is equal to the mayor when in resources, political operations, contact with administration and engagement with the job the mayor exceeds most councillors. This imbalance is just being codified.

Councillors absolutely need to be strengthened and resourced, but it is their job to fight for themselves. Wringing their hands at these new powers is not enough. Full time councils, staffed councillors, additional councillors through Ward realignment are all options that council can enact and are not provincial priorities which makes them exempt form the veto.

Only time will tell how, strong mayor powers playout. Frankly I don’t expect a whole lot of change. I don’t expect mayors vetoing votes right, left and centre- most provincial priorities are in the space of housing, mass transit and economic development – and there is usually agreement on these issues at least in principle. Sure, certain process elements will change – who present the budget, maybe a department gets reorganized without talking to council– but when has council not supported that sort of action locally?

Overtime I suspect this will cause an evolution in municipal elected officials and the role of mayor. It is incumbent on the community to shape that evolution. Strong councils can still check a strong mayor, while the operations and implementation of these powers do enable a mayor to implement their vision more rapidly, in my opinion it doesn’t doom use to despotic future.