Let me say something provocative, and then I'll have you either agree or disagree with this.

I think the city manager role is the most important job that most people haven't heard of.

Agree or disagree?

Well, I do believe that most people haven't heard of it.

Most people in America think their city government is run by the mayor.

And in probably 40% of cities in America, their city is run by the mayor. But in the rest of the

country, most cities are actually run on a day-to-day basis by a city manager. And you probably

have no idea as a resident of your community

what your city manager actually does. Martha Bennett is the city manager of Lake Oswego in Oregon.

It's a suburb just south of Portland. So here's a quick civics lesson. In America, cities are

typically run in one of two ways. There's the strong

mayor system where a mayor runs the city and a council is the legislative branch. Then there's

the council manager system where the city council hires a professional city manager to handle

day-to-day operations. That's Lake Oswego's approach.

They still have a mayor, though. The mayor has a really important community organizing and

political coalition building role in the organization. He sets the city council's agenda. He

represents the city. I think of him as like the head of state of the city.

But I run the city on a day-to-date basis, and I'm hired by the city council as a whole.

So I work for a majority of the elected officials as opposed to just one elected official.

Now, further complicating matters is that the mayor is actually on the city council and leads it.

So you partner with the mayor because the reality is that none of the work of the city gets done

unless a majority of the city council agrees that we need to do that work.

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