Aurora – An advisory panel decided that the current form of city government is just fine.
The panel Thursday night considered but shot down a proposal to recommend making the city a strong-mayor form of government, such as Denver, instead of the current city manager-City Council structure.
The proposal would have bumped the mayor’s pay significantly and made the mayor responsible for proposing the city budget and for making key city appointments, such as police and fire chiefs. Many of those responsibilities lie with the city manager and City Council.
The blue-ribbon panel has been meeting for seven months to suggest changes. The council will decide which recommendations to put to voters. Among changes being considered include whether to create a city and county of Aurora, whether to do away with current requirements on the number of police officers per 1,000 residents, and whether to make council seats full-time positions.
Several panel members said they would like to better define the roles of mayor and council but said changing the current structure was not needed at this time.
“I don’t see the payoff for making this kind of change,” panel member Matt Cook said.
