State law allows direct election of the mayor under Prop 1

The column written by Battle Ground City Councilors Michael Ciraulo and Adrian Cortes was interesting commentary but plainly wrong when they state: “[i]n July 2013 a majority coalition arbitrarily changed our form of government…” The Battle Ground City Council cannot change their form of government. That takes a vote of the people. My understanding of what Ciraulo and Cortes are upset about is the procedures the Battle Ground Council adopted to elect their mayor. They don’t make any complaints about their city management, in fact they seem to compliment it.

Likewise, the centerpiece of the opponents of Proposition 1 in Washougal is whether the mayor is directly elected by the voters or not. They don’t say much of anything about how the mayor’s duties differ between Washougal’s system and city manager systems like Battle Ground’s. They don’t discuss what professional management a city manager system brings to a city or how it might be an improvement over the amateur management of a part-time mayor. They just want you to think that all this does is take away the voters’ power to elect the mayor.