Power Politics: Is the mayor irrelevant in El Paso?

council trying to figure out how much power the mayor should have. ABC-7’s maria garcia is live tonight with the story … the city is considering having a charter election. the city charter is like a constitution – it tells how government should operate. but residents have to vote on any changes. and one of the changes the city council is considering: the role of the mayor. right now the mayor doesn’t vote except to break ties. but some council members suggested the mayor should vote on all matters. though if he gets that power – some council members want to strip away the mayor’s power to veto. mayor oscar leeser said his office is already weak. he says for example – he couldn’t even negotiate with the firefigthers on pay raises. but some city reps say that’s the fault of state law, not the city charter. the mayor says the changes would make his office useless: “if we don’t want to have a mayor, i think we ought to look at not having a mayor in the City and basically running it as council and city manager because i think we’ve made it a very weak position and based on some of the things i’m looking at it looks like council wants to make it for the future a little bit weaker, which is kind of a bad deal.” “most of the big cities i Texas have a mayor that votes that doesn’t have the veto power am i right? How about Austin and San Antonio and Dallas and it works well for them.” the mayor says this isn’t about power for him – but responsibility. a committee is exploring the charter changes that could come before voters. city council would set an election date. maria, thank you. city council wants