A Strong Mayor in Hartford,CT
Hartford Connecticut adopted a Strong Mayor form of government in 2003. Eddie Perez was Hartford's first strong mayor in 70 years. Here are excerpts from an article about the transition. For a link to the entire article, please click here.
As a strong mayor, Perez is Hartford's CEO. He says that power has helped him reform the way the city is run. "We inherited a system of management that was severely flawed. The old system was filled with patronage. This has been a shock to the system. It's a new accountability. We were never going to get good results with the old system." ............"Back when we had a weak mayor and everything was done by committee, you didn't get these kinds of people," says Matt Hennessy, Perez's chief of staff. "These people were saying, 'We're coming in to change the way things are run.' They weren't going to come unless they had the power and the freedom to do that."......... The city council opposed the change to Hartford's charter, so Peters worked to bring the issue to a public vote through a petition. .......... Perez took up the fight, and in 2003 voters approved the new charter. Perez became a strong mayor in January 2004. "We had no opposition to the strong-mayor system once it was brought to a fair vote," he says. "It was a fait accompli."