City exploring mayor’s power

The El Paso City Council is exploring what kind of power and responsibilities the Mayor should have.

The City is considering having a charter election. The city charter is like a constitution, a guide on how the City should operate. Residents have to vote on any changes and one of the changes the city council is considering: the role of the Mayor.

Currently the Mayor doesn’t vote except to break ties. 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 said for example, he couldn’t even negotiate with the firefighters union on pay raises. City officials said that’s due to state law that forbids City officials from using city resources for a political purpose, not the city charter.

The Mayor said the changes would make his office useless, saying it’s about responsibility not power. “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,” said Leeser.

“Most of the big cities in 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,” said City Rep. Ann Morgan Lilly.

A committee is exploring the charter changes that could come before voters. City Council would set an election date.