Oshkosh officials engage in semantic shuffle to solve linguistic legislation

Oshkosh Mayor Matt Mugerauer recently proposed changing the title of the city’s mayor to Council President, suggesting that the new name would be more reflective of the official’s role in city government. Right now, the mayor is elected at large by the city’s voters, but, if the change is approved, the Oshkosh Common Council would choose one of its seven members to serve a two-year term as council president.

The proposed change comes in response to Mugerauer’s observation that the community has a generally misguided understanding of the mayor’s power in local government. Mugerauer expressed his concern in a letter to the Common Council and described cases when there has appeared to be a misunderstanding about the distribution of power within the city’s government.

“A significant portion of our population believes the Mayor of Oshkosh is the chief executive,” he said.

Mugerauer believes this has led to problems including “Questions as to who speaks for the City of Oshkosh,” and “State officials reaching out to the Mayor instead of City Manager’s Office, for matters that require the chief executive to be informed and for decisions to be made.” He is hopeful that changes would help local government become more efficient and representative of the people.

Oshkosh functions with a council-manager style of government, meaning that a hired city manager and elected council share responsibility for the leadership of the city. Oshkosh is unique among Wisconsin cities in that it is the only municipality with both a city manager and a mayor elected at-large, but, as in other cities that use a council-manager system, the primary function of Oshkosh’s mayor is to lead the Council.

This system means that people are not able to vote for their chief executive and may be unfamiliar with who is representing them in this area of city government, but council-manager style government has distinct advantages.

“The day-to-day operations are done by the city manager, where the idea is that it’s an expert in their field, whereas a mayor may or may not have any logistical preparation to prepare for it, and they’re somebody who runs it like any other competition,” AP US Government and Politics teacher Patrick Bertram said.

Elected officials’ concern with positioning themselves for reelection may make them averse to policies, such as raising utility rates, that could be unpopular with the people but be necessary for city function. Electing influential city officials can also create sudden reversals in policy that result from changes in the dominant political ideology in local government.

Common Council member Karl Buelow believes stable leadership of city government is especially important because of the essentiality of the services that this level of government coordinates for the community.

“The local government is responsible for setting your local tax rates, for general maintenance of the city, the roads, the snowplows, and the trash pick-up. Local government is really a function of serving the people for the people,” he said.

While the mayor has little executive power in the Oshkosh government, former Mayor Lori Palmeri, now the representative for the 54th district in the Wisconsin State Assembly, notes that the position’s duties extend beyond leadership of the Common Council.

“The Mayor recruits, interviews, and decides who to recommend to Council for Boards and Commissions,” she says. “There are specific documents that require signatures on occasion [from the highest elected official].”

Changing the Mayor’s title to Council President may not provide sufficient acknowledgement to these special duties.

Buelow is also unsure whether the proposed change would clarify the duties of the mayor, and thinks that other steps need to be taken to educate the city about the function of their local government.

“I think that activating the online resources, putting up an FAQ, especially right before an election, could help, but also plugging into the League of Women Voters, which does a lot of education around voting. Even the Democratic and Republican Parties, having them hold some informational sessions so that the people know what they’re voting for and what powers the person does and doesn’t have,” he suggests. “If we go out and change all those titles, we’re going to have to do a reeducation campaign anyway, so let’s just do it based on what we already have.”

Buelow also suggests that there is value in the traditional involvement of the mayor in Oshkosh culture, and thinks that adopting the new title of Council President could weaken these customs by making the position less glamorous to the public.

“When the mayor goes to the Hmong festival or the firefighters’ ball or anything like that, it’s the mayor that’s there, and I think that’s a bit cooler than the council president,” he says. “So, in those terms, I think there's some value in keeping the title of the mayor as well.”

However, there are others who have little objection to the proposed change. Bertram believes that the current title and popular election for the position inflate the importance of the role in public perception, and he suggests that the community would benefit from greater acknowledgement of the limits of the mayor’s power.

“To me, there’s no benefit to the old system that we have with the mayor. It’s a fancy title. It’s a poll, essentially, that gives someone that title, but, like they’ve been saying, it’s confusing. People expect the mayor to take action, but the mayor doesn’t act as the chief executive in the city.”

Some community members have expressed concern about the Common Council determining whether to enact the proposed changes, preferring to bring the issue to the city’s voters through a referendum. The Council was at one point responsible for selecting the city’s mayor from among its seven members, but the current election system was adopted after a 2004 referendum on the issue, and many believe the people should be the ones to reverse that decision if such action is taken. Palmeri is among those who think the ultimate decision should be made by the community at large.

“It is for the voters of Oshkosh to decide whether this title should be changed,” she says.

Buelow agrees that it is important to allow the people to be directly involved in deciding how their mayor or council president will be elected in the future, but he adds that the proposal might not make it far enough to be voted on by the Council or in a referendum.

“Based on the feedback that we give at the first reading, or that we hear at that reading, it may just get pulled and not brought back for a full vote,” he explains. “Everything is possible.”

by Aria Boehler

Published February 26 2024

Oshkosh West Index Volume 120 Issue V