New London's 'strong' mayor job moves into its adolescence
Nov. 11—NEW LONDON — Inside the City Council chambers on the third floor of City Hall hang two floor-to-ceiling prints etched with gold and violet letters that trace the history of New London's government back to 1784.
One image lists the names and dates of service of 36 mayors with a 90-year gap between E. Frank Morgan (1918-1921) and Daryl J. Finizio (2011-2015). Just underneath the name of Finizio, the city's first directly elected mayor in 90 years, comes that of Michael E. Passero, who on Tuesday won a third term to a position voters only created in 2010 after two previous attempts had failed.
On Wednesday, Passero, a former City Council member who pushed to end the city manager form of government in New London years before he won his first mayoral term in 2015, still bristles when talking about former city managers, a group of employees whose names are enshrined at the bottom of another large council chamber print.
"They had all the power, all the advantages, and it was undemocratic," Passero said. "They weren't subject to be voted out, and as long as you had four votes on the council, you'd stay."
Up until the 2010 city charter change that allowed for the direct election of a mayor, City Council members would horse-trade for the right to be named "council mayor," typically a one-year ceremonial position analogous to the current council president.
"The two highest council vote-getters would agree that one would serve as mayor for a year in exchange for getting the other person's vote for the next year," Passero said. "And the city manager was running things behind closed doors without having to worry what voters thought."
169 towns and a variety of governments
The forms of government in Connecticut vary widely among the state's 169 municipalities, from mayor/city council and council/city manager types to selectmen, representative town meeting and hybrids of all the above.
Passero said the manager/council form of government New London used for decades works best in those towns and smaller cities where elected officials serve short terms and need a steady presence to guide new members without a lot of institutional knowledge.
"Even then, I think it's best to have a city manager cycle out every four years," he said. "If not, you have a person that can stay in that job for 25 or 30 years."
Besides giving more accountability to voters, Passero said the directly elected mayor format, if run properly, allows a more streamlined governing process.
But Mary Calorio, president of the Connecticut Town & City Management Association, said approximately 60 municipalities, including Norwich, Willimantic and Cheshire, have all had success employing a manager.
Calorio said there's typically not a big difference between a manager and a "strong" mayor, at least when it comes to responsibilities and powers.
"They are both day-to-day CEOs with a manager being appointed, not elected," said Calorio, who has served as Killingly's town manager for more than four years. "A town or city manager can provide continuity to staff and a buffer from the political arena."
She said in a town where an elected council can see frequent turnover, a manager serves as a stabilizing figure.
"A council member just elected may not be aware of a goal, grant or project mentioned four or five years ago ― a bridge project can take five to 10 years to finish," Calorio said. "It's the manager's job to support a council, provide them context and focus on long-term goals on behalf of the community."
Norwich council head open to change
Norwich employs City Manager John Salomone to coordinate, supervise and direct the city's administrative departments, as well as to craft annual budgets for the City Council, a seven-member body that includes Mayor Peter Nystrom.
Though Norwich's mayor is not a "strong" type, since the office-holder possesses no executive authority, Council President Pro Tempore Joseph DeLucia said the job, by charter, entails overseeing economic development.
"That, to me, is a failed concept, that a city's head of economic development is chosen by a popularity contest, not because they possess a shred of experience," DeLucia said.
He said a Charter Revision Commission formed nearly 20 years floated the idea of shifting to a directly elected mayor, but strong public opposition ended the conversation.
"They didn't want one person with that kind of authority, which I think is short-sighted," DeLucia said. "You build in safeguards and don't let the job become a benevolent dictatorship."
He pointed to Passero's success in New London as reasons to re-open the "strong" mayor conversation.
"An elected mayor would have to have a vision for all aspects of the city and a lot of people to support that vision," Delucia said. "And while it would be one person driving the bus, that person would have create consensus and be willing to compromise."
New London does employ a chief administrative officer, Steve Fields, who was hired by Passero to oversee the administrative side of City Hall, including coordinating with department heads and managing the police chief and personnel director.
New London's mayor also possesses veto power on council agenda items that requires a six-vote majority to overturn.
"A directly elected mayor is just more representative and responsive than a city manager," Passero said. "I don't think it's a coincidence that we're seeing the kinds of positive changes in the city — including the construction of a new recreation center — happen in the last decade since we made the charter change."
A "bumpy ride"
Former Mayor Daryl Finizio, a Westerly transplant with long-standing familial connections to New London, was elected the city's first "strong" mayor in 2011, a year after the charter change allowed the abandonment of the city manager job.
"I knew coming in it was going to be an extremely difficult situation, just by the fact I was the first mayor under this new form of government," he said during a Friday phone interview. "That kind of transition is always challenging for a community, and no one knew what to expect."
Finizio said that uncertainty was compounded by the city's state at the time he took office — actually, he worked in the council chamber's anteroom for the first week, as his work office was still being prepared for use.
"No one had a clear sense of the city's finances for those last two years, and in that final year before I came in they were way out of whack," he said. 'We'd nearly exhausted our fund balance; were running a massive deficit; were at risk of not making payroll; and in danger of having the state come in and take over."
In an effort to right the municipal ship, Finizio introduced a series of tax increases and spending cuts the former mayor acknowledged were unpopular.
"But we laid the groundwork for school construction projects and the incoming Coast Guard museum that, years later, we're seeing the fruits of," he said. "Overall, it's been shown, by myself and (Passero's) terms, that this system of government is working."
Finizio's first and only mayoral term was punctuated with occasional ― and very public ― missteps as he worked to establish the boundaries of a new position that included wholesale personnel changes, including the firing of several police officers for alleged misconduct and brutality. Those dismissals were later appealed and the officers rehired.
"No one had ever done this job before ― we were creating the job from scratch ― and it was almost inevitably going to be a bumpy ride no matter who was in office," Finizio said.
He said the city manager form of government shackled New London by making it harder to attract developers and jump-start capital projects.
"In a town that's doing well economically, the city manager/council type of government does well, but in a diverse city, it's hard to get anything done with a that form of government," he said. "Someone has to be in charge and accountable."
He noted the town of West Warwick, R.I., briefly flirted with transition to a 'strong' mayor, but residents ― to their detriment, Finizio said ― successfully pushed to reverse that change.
"People there were impatient," he said. "I'm glad the residents of New London had the patience to stay with it."
