BEAVERTON, Ore. — Lacey Beaty became Beaverton's mayor on Jan. 1, 2021, the same day the Portland suburb changed its form of government.
For the previous 30 years or more, Beaverton had what's considered a "strong mayor" government. The mayor ran city departments, had a hand in day-to-day operations and was in charge of major hiring decisions. The mayor was also a political figure. The city council set policy and approved budgets, but did not have a say in personnel decisions.
Now, Beaverton has a professional city manager who runs the day-to-day operations, while Mayor Beaty and the six city council members set policy but are not involved in running city operations. Beaty's job as mayor is full-time, but the rest of the city council are part-time and employ no staff.
Beaty isn't sure Beaverton's current form of government is the best one possible.
"I was one of the few that didn’t vote for the change. It was in the middle of my election that I was running," Beaty said. "I think part of the problem that exists now is there’s no one the buck stops with. As a member of the council, all seven of us are trying to direct the city manager. Getting consensus on items is challenging, and you have an unelected person basically managing everything in the city."
Consensus among the city council has been made worse by an open seat, Beaty said — with only six total votes, the council has occasionally found itself deadlocked.
"It is a challenging form of government to operate in if you have a council that can’t get along. This form of government would be really challenging. Luckily we do have a good form of government but right now we only have six of us because one of the members resigned. So the whole time we’ve been in this form of government, only two months have we had seven members.”
Beaty recalled her efforts to ban fireworks within city limits after a heat dome sent temperatures soaring into triple-digits over multiple days. The ban did not pass.
"Because we only had six members, three voted for, three voted against. It failed. Fireworks did not pass. So we would have had a four to two vote to make that happen."
Beaty, a combat veteran, expressed frustration that the "weak mayor" system didn't allow her to put the ban in place.
"We had a huge community outcry asking us to ban fireworks. Not just because of the heat dome but because of the environmental impacts, dogs, everything else. So that is a small thing, but a strong mayor could have banned fireworks. In this form of government, it takes four of the councilors to direct the city manager to do it," she explained.
Portland's current form of government is also under review. Voters will have a chance in November to decide if it should change.
Currently, Portland has four elected city commissioners and the mayor. Each commissioner, including the mayor, is in charge of several large city bureaus and hundreds of employees.
Under a proposal by the Portland Charter Commission, the city's form of government would change to a strong mayor system. The mayor would be in charge of a city manager and, together, they would run the day-to-day operations of the city. The city council would expand to 12 members and set policy, but not be involved in the day-to-day.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has said the current system, with elected officials running big departments, is not working.
"The core problem, as I see it, is you are electing people to serve on a city council. But really, what they are is managers of diverse, complicated, large business enterprises. People who are elected to the Portland City Council may have never managed anything larger than a popsicle stand," Wheeler said.
The result of elected officials running bureaus is that each commissioner can do what they want with their bureaus. The mayor's only recourse is to take away the bureaus from the commissioner — but he can't run them all himself.
That's an obvious problem, Beaverton's Mayor Beaty said.
"The way that the Portland commission is designed now, they don’t report to Ted. At the end of the day, who is held accountable?" Beaty said. "And I think now, the city manager will be held accountable. They’ll have department heads running all of those divisions."
The other problem with Portland's separated bureaus led by different commissioners is too much duplication of effort.
"We have to consolidate our leadership. The silos are absolutely working against our ability to deliver the basic services that the public expects us to deliver," Wheeler said. "Just picking up the trash requires you to go through seven different bureaus as opposed to centralizing that service like any city would. And that's why you're seeing me pass executive directives that help me on an emergency to consolidate services."
Despite her critiques, Beaty believes Beaverton's new form of government is working, even though it might take longer to make things happen.
She also didn't miss a chance to promote her city.
"I think what's going great is Beaverton is the place to be. We have a 2% commercial vacancy rate. People want to come and do business here," Beaty said. "They want to open their restaurant. we opened tons of restaurants during the pandemic."