In case you haven’t read it yet, my Hall Monitor column this week was filed from my hometown of Fresno, CA, where I was on vacation for the week. I took the opportunity to chat about forms of government with Henry Perea, the president of Fresno’s city council, and the ways in which Fresno’s differs from Portland’s, and what the similarities are with the form of government change that will be on our May ballot.

John Doussard, the mayor’s communications director, has since pointed out that there are differences between Fresno’s form of government and the Charter Review Commission’s recommendations—a point with which I do not disagree. For the record, here are Doussard’s points:

Fresno has what’s known as a “strong Mayor” form of government, which nationally is defined by 2 main characteristics: (1) the Mayor has veto power, and (2) the Mayor appoints a City Manager without oversight of that appointment by the Council.

The Charter Review Commission recommendations contain neither of those.

Fresno’s Mayor has: (1) veto power (2) sole appointment power (3) Mayor does not serve on the Council.
CRC recommendations: (1) no veto power (2) appointments subject to approval by Council (3) Mayor serves on Council.

Alas, I never said they were the same, only that there’s a resemblance. And compared to the commission form of government, Fresno’s FOG and the review commission’s recommendations are pretty damn similar, particularly concerning the decreased role of the city council members—strictly legislative, with no authority over bureaus—which was my point.

But! Since we’re on the topic of the differences between Fresno and the review commission’s recommendations, I’d argue that most of the differences would add up to make Portland’s system even worse than Fresno.

Like, for instance, the fact that the mayor would still have one of five votes on the city council. He (or she) would be the sole executive, and would only need to pick up two votes for a majority on council. In terms of appointments, this means “council approval” is the mayor and whatever two votes he or she can pick up. Since he or she will be controlling all of the bureaus, those two votes would be easy to get in a political trade.

Also, Portland would still not be districted and the city council would stay at five members—if you’re taking power away from council members, adding districts and increasing the size of the council would at least partially balance out the system with increased representation.