"It's time to test the waters"?

The City Club has been pushing this for 50 years.

Progressives will rue the day they demanded and got a City Manager.

The Mercury News department is in a perfect position to explain how this new system would work in detail.

First, 8 commissioners, or whatever number, would have expanded numbers of staff and pay them: constituent services and policy advisors. Today, for instance, Commissioner Eudaly has to have policy advisors for PBOT and Neighborhood. Under the future systems, each commissioner would need policy advisors for every bureau.

Second, the bureau heads would simply be assigned to the City Manager, presumably directing hiring and firing.

Third, the City Manager position, new to Portland, is highly paid. They would have a layer of highly paid managers above the almost 30 bureaus. The City Manager's office would, of course, need its own policy staff.

Fourth, recruiting the City Manager is entirely likely to become an exercise in "world class" candidate recruiting at ridiculous salary, for them to stay 2-3 years to build their resume, before moving on to a bigger city-higher paid job.

I'm pro equity and pro democracy in the extreme. But no one is explaining how this would actually work and cost, including the City Club, which should know better.

The attraction of district representation, an article of religion, is that it is "just." Portland is "poor" which is why we have our current system, it is cheap. Bureau advisory committees provide "just" today, but their members are not just communicating with the neighborhoods.

Mercury News can study other cities and report on the results and costs.

Whoops, I missed fifth. A carpetbagger City Manager would have a professional career growth incentive beyond Portland to hire bureau heads who could exchange professional advancement opportunities in the City Manager's future jobs.

What!! Accountable council members and professional administrators who can be fired for not doing their job? Oh the humanity!!