City manager search reveals a weakness in city charter

The search for a new city manager is about to wrap up.
The private company that was hired to conduct the search will reveal its findings at the Feb. 12 city council meeting. Word is that over 20 candidates applied but only a handful met the city charter qualifications.
The qualifications for Hamtramck’s city manager need to be looked at again, with an eye toward revising it. Simply put, it requires a city manager candidate to have had experience in that position in a city with a population of at least 10,000.
That’s about 5,000 too many in our way of looking at things.
We understand that the framers of the charter purposely raised the bar on qualifications to prevent local elected officials of playing games and hiring one of their buddies who had little experience.
We are past that moment. It’s too bad no one thought to put an expiration date on that requirement and allow for it to come down to a more reasonable qualification.
Hamtramck is too small of a town to expect that level of experience, and we are limiting ourselves to otherwise qualified candidates.
We urge the city council to form a sub-committee to explore updating our city charter and presenting updates for the voters to consider. The charter is out of date and needs to be refreshed.

2 Responses to City manager search reveals a weakness in city charter

  1. Neighbor

    January 26, 2018 at 4:46 pm

    City should go back to mayor form of government like Warren, Detroit & Warren.
    City Manger form has proven to be a disaster and did not save Hamtramck for Bankruptcies.
    At lease someone will be responsible for their actions and a leader actually living in Hamtramck will care more.
    Our past city manager did not even see Hamtramck fit for living in and will choose to live somewhere else showing how much proud and confident of its services.

  2. Neighbor

    January 26, 2018 at 4:47 pm

    All is needed is a short ballot question to rewrite the charter; Should all duties and benefits of a city manager be transferred to the mayor?

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