Good luck replacing Lemmie, Shirey says

Cincinnati City Council's national reputation for micromanaging will make it difficult for the next mayor to replace departing City Manager Valerie Lemmie, her predecessor said. Terry Kinney of the Associated Press tracked down former City Manager John F. Shirey in Sacramento, and Shirey had this to say:

"It will not be a job easily filled ... because of the experience of the
past several city managers," said John Shirey, who quit in 2001. "Word gets around in this profession. Also, the form of government has changed. Many people would not choose to work there."

Shirey is executive director of the California Redevelopment Association. His departure from Cincinnati coincided with a switch to a form of government in which the mayor has somewhat more power than before but can be vetoed by the City Council. The city manager is in charge of day-to-day administration of municipal government.

"The problem with the job is the person in the job doesn't get the support he or she needs to do the job well," Shirey said in a telephone interview from Sacramento. "There's a pattern."

He said elected officials should "confine their role to policymaking and strategic planning and let the manager manage. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the history in Cincinnati for many years."

The irony is that the new system of government was supposed to make the city manager more secure, because City Council can no longer fire her without the mayor's urging. But Lemmie, who came from a "pure" council-manager system in Dayton, said she learned quickly that wasn't the case. "This has been a difficult job since I walked in the door," she told The Enquirer recently. "The effort to create a strong mayor has effectively created a strong council."

(Photo by Kevin J. Miyazaki/Cincinnati Enquirer)