GET DAILY REPORT FREE
As the March 29 vote on St. George’s Home Rule Charter approaches, attorney Andrew Murrell, chair of the St. George Transition District and candidate for St. George City Council, is pushing back against critics of the proposed governance model.
In his view, the council-manager form of government proposed in the charter offers more accountability and stronger checks and balances than the default Lawrason Act model can provide.
“There are some misconceptions out there about what the charter does and doesn’t do,” Murrell tells Daily Report.
If approved by voters, the charter would establish a council-manager form of government for St. George, meaning a city manager would be appointed by a seven-member city council and approved by the mayor to act essentially as the city’s CEO, overseeing all day-to-day operations.
“I know the city manager process is scary for some, but the reality is almost all governments have city managers—you just don’t see them,” Murrell says. “They’re not accountable to you. They’re accountable only to the mayor who hires them. … In our government, the city manager’s sole way of making a living would be making sure essential city functions are performed.”
The charter has stirred debate even among current officials of the newly incorporated city. In February, Chris Rials, treasurer for the St. George Transition District, told Daily Report that the charter is “bloated and bureaucratic beyond comprehension.”
“In my research, I haven’t found another city in America that has a full-time city manager overseeing a full-time primary managing contractor that also has a full-time mayor with no executive authority who’s mainly an adviser,” Rials said at the time.
According to Rials, St. George’s mayoral salary of $160,000 would make the city’s mayor the highest-paid council-manager mayor in the nation.
Murrell dismisses the notion that St. George’s high mayoral salary would be unjustified under the charter, arguing that it’s disingenuous to focus on one salary figure without acknowledging that the duties the mayor would be performing are split among multiple six-figure positions in many other cities.
Rials isn’t the only high-profile St. George resident to raise concerns about the charter, though. Jimmy Bozeman, for instance, who canvassed for the city’s incorporation, has described the charter as a “bait and switch” that does not align with the original vision promised to residents during the incorporation effort.
And when city council candidate Bill Johannessen criticized the charter on St. George’s official Facebook page, he was blocked from the page and his posts were removed.
Murrell, who runs the page, issued an apology for silencing Johannessen after receiving pushback from the public.
“My intent was to prevent candidates from politicizing our informational posts,” Murrell’s apology reads. “In hindsight, I missed the mark.”
Online drama aside, Murrell points to a major provision in the charter that would prevent St. George from raising property taxes without voter approval as a critical safeguard for taxpayers. He says there is no such provision in Louisiana’s Lawrason Act, the default governance model the city would operate under if the charter is rejected.
He also contends that the veto powers afforded to both the mayor and the city council under the charter would create a strong system of checks and balances, and that council members would have limited power to respond to the needs of their constituents under the Lawrason Act.
“Under the Home Rule Charter, if you’re aggrieved and you talk to your council member, your council member can put that item on the agenda for a discussion and a vote,” Murrell says. “Under the Lawrason Act, your council member can’t put an item on the agenda unless the mayor allows it.”
