Kansas City, Missouri: The Experience of a Major Midwestern City Under Council Manager Government Max J. Skidmore Background years. Along with notable corruption there was Kansas City, Missouri, a city of somewhat considerable civic progress. fewer than 500,000 inhabitants in a metropolitan Kansas City therefore presents a unique and area of nearly two million, adopted the council- especially interesting set of circumstances. These manager form of government in 1925. On the 3rd circumstances offer a fertile field of study to iden- of November that year, municipal elections deter- tify the strengths and weaknesses of “profes- mined the members of the new council who sional, non-partisan, government.” That form of assumed their seats on 10 April 1926 (Ellis 65). It government now has been on the American scene has been a council-manager city ever since. The so long that it seems almost traditional, despite its city also has a colorful history of “boss” politics. rejection of many of the principles that constitute The notorious Pendergast Machine dominated accepted American governmental practice. Kansas City politics for decades, and was a major factor in stimulating the reform efforts that led to Council-Manager Government the adoption of “non-partisan, professional” gov- Council-manager government more closely ernment. resembles the structure of a modern corporation Dashing the hopes of the reformers, Thomas than it does the classic separation of powers arrange- J. Pendergast-“The Boss”-rose to the height of ment with discrete legislative, executive, and his power following the adoption of the new judicial branches. This is deliberate, and is based on the assumption that running a city requires not charter. Although reformers had hoped their suc- “politics,” but skill at administration. “The busi- cess would ensure clean government, machine ness corporation and the corporate ways of doing politics flourished for some thirteen years under business provided a major intellectual model” the council-manager system. William M. Reddig, (Boynton 8). Unconsciously, the architects of the who wrote the classic study of boss politics in council-manager plan were motivated by a politi- Kansas City, wrote that “as the system actually cal ideology around which they constructed their worked out, it strengthened the control of the new model, the ideology of managerialism.’ bosses and the party organizations over the selec- Under the Council-manager plan as in parlia- tion of officeholders” (Reddig 117). More recent mentary democracy, the voters elect only the leg- studies of the machine concur (e.g. Dorsett; islature, not the executive. Also as in a parliamen- Larsen and Hulston). Reddig went on to note that tary system, the legislature selects the executive. the idea that independent citizens would run for office The city manager is the one public chief executive in the without the encouragement of an organization was a fan- United States who is legally subordinate to the legisla- tasy that never provoked anything except mirth among ture, and who needs continuous legislative approval. practical politicians. (Reddig 117- 18) (Protasel 810) Many observers regardless of their sentiments The parallel with parliamentary systems, though, about machine politics would find it strange that is absent in the plan’s actual operation. A rudi- a vigorous urban culture also thrived during those mentary sort of separation of powers does exist, 81 82 . Journal of American and Comparative Cultures ill that council-manager charters prohibit the in the hands of a professional administrator, came elected legislature from interfering in the city’s to be a power in the National Municipal League. administration. The manager not only is the The League was a strong proponent of the coun- administrator, but functions with a high degree of cil-manager plan, and has continued to be a autonomy. The details of administration are pre- forceful advocate (Goodall 59-60). sumed to be irrelevant, so long as the manager Schools of public administration now recog- carries out the legislature’s policy. nize that the early assumption that “policy” and Thus, the city’s legislature takes the form of a “administration” could be separated was unrealis- small city council, which in turn employs a city tic. When professors and practitioners alike admon- manager to serve at its pleasure. The intention of ished that administration was the manager’s pre- the plan is that the manager be a trained profes- rogative, policy that of the council, and that nei- sional administrator. The manager becomes the ther should encroach upon the responsibilities of executive head of the city, and selects and dis- the other, they were calling for the impossible. It charges the heads of the city’s administrative now is clear that “the distinction between these departments. two functions is at best a fuzzy one and that the In the original model, the council members two will often overlap” (Goodall 59-60). Never- are the only elected municipal officials. The gov- theless, such an assumption remains implicitly ernment will be non-partisan, with candidates the fundamental rationale for council-manager running at large to eliminate or dilute sectional government. sentiment. In the majority of cases, however, The plan has had considerable appeal because there are variations on the classic pattern that of the typical American animus toward “politics.” early reformers recommended. Boynton wrote Those “who have long wanted to remove ‘poli- that tics’ from municipal government and to place it on a ‘businesslike’ basis,” Adrian wrote, are a council-manager city might be classified as a model likely to find council-manager government attrac- city if its form permitted only the election of a small tive (Adrian 35). An editorial in the National council in an at-large election, with the mayor selected Municipal Review stated it clearly in October of by the council and with the election of no other munici- 1942. The plan, it said, “came into being as a pal officials. result of a demand for business rather than politi- cal management of public affairs.’’ Goodall made In over half the cases the voters elect a mayor the same point, that there has been a “pervasive directly, who therefore “has political and/or offi- influence of the assumption that local govern- cial functions that separate that officer from the ment and politics should be separated. The coun- rest of the council” (Boynton 8). Direct election cil-manager plan,” he said, “was advocated as a “breaks the unified role imagined by the plan for means for substituting businesslike management the council,” which is shattered still further by practices for political manipulation” (Goodall cities that incorporate other changes, such as pro- 73). One early theorist, in fact, Frank Goodnow, viding for additional elected officials. Such cities went so far as to argue that “self-administration” “have politicized and fragmented both the policy- would replace local self-government. Still, poli- making and policy-implementing process” (Boynton tics is destined to continue, although it will be 9). less in evidence (Goodall 73; Adrian 37). Staunton, Virginia lays claim to being the first The virtues of the council-manager plan appear city to adopt council-manger government. In so obvious to its adherents that they seem mysti- 1908, it appointed a “general manager,” but also fied by the criticisms that it engenders. Although retained other elected officials. Sumter, South “good government’’ groups tend to think highly Carolina in 1912 was the first to adopt a full- of the plan and it clearly is popular among small fledged council-manager system. The first rela- and medium-sized cities, there continues to be a tively large city to do so was Dayton, Ohio in phenomenon that perplexes its proponents. Elec- 1914. During those years, Richard S. Childs, who tions to abandon council-manager government argued that the number of elected officials be are frequent among “reformed” cities. Most of kept to a minimum while administration be placed these elections, to be sure, result in retaining the Kansas City, Missouri 83 plan but their frequency is a source of concern to There can be little doubt that many of the early the reformers (Protasel807). reformers, although genuinely seeking honest and A major reason advanced for unhappiness efficient government, found “businesslike gov- with the plan, especially in larger and more diverse ernment” to be indistinguishable from govern- cities, is a perceived need for stronger political ment in the interest of business. Representatives leadership. Council-manager government, so the of business during the Progressive Period often argument goes, makes policy leadership extraor- were at the forefront of the reform movement, dinarily difficult to achieve inasmuch as there is and worked to reduce or even deny a voice to no focal point for political responsibility. One ethnic minorities and the poor. Some of the urban proponent-implicitly conceding the point-has reforrners were “almost preoccupied with fear of suggested that direct election of the mayor and immigrant groups” (Lewis 75). Even if such other revisions to the classic plan could provide judgments are too harsh, Progressive reformers such leadership, thus adapting the plan “to the certainly struck at the power of political machines. Because the power of the political boss flowed increasing political demands on city government” from the support of the voters, it followed that it (Protasel809). was necessary to restrict the power of the voters- This would fail to satisfy the critics, who tend at least of those voters who would support the to view the council-manager system as inherently boss. less democratic than the typical forms of Amer- The defenders of the plan remain unaffected ican government. One such critic wrote that by such arguments. Fears that council-manager government is undemocratic are simply nostalgia the evaluation of metropolitan and urban governance in and a failure to recognize that changing times the twentieth century has shown a consistent turning bring changing conditions.