Pueblo Voters to Decide Whether to End Strong Mayor System

By Savana Kascak | Complete Colorado

PUEBLO–The City of Pueblo’s November election ballot includes a major charter amendment asking voters to dismantle the city’s “strong mayor” form of government, reverting to the council/manager system the southern Colorado municipality of roughly 111,000 residents once had.

Pueblo, along with Denver, Leadville and Colorado Springs are currently the only cities that operate under a council-mayor form of government, where an elected mayor with veto authority acts as the chief executive, preparing the budget, hiring and directing staff, and proposing ordinances. The city council acts as the mayor’s legislative counterpart, adopting the budget, and approving and acting on ordinances.

Ballot Question 2C asks voters to change to a council-manager city government. The amendment would eliminate the offices of city and deputy mayor as well as chief of staff, and create the city manager’s office, who is selected by city council.

Under the new system, city council would set and adopt the budget while the manager would be responsible for hiring staff and carrying out policy, with the president of the council as a ceremonial title.

Pueblo was previously a council-manager government until voters approved the current strong mayor system in 2017.

Strong mayor pushes back

The measure to reverse that 8-year-old decision comes after a contentious back and forth, with Pueblo Mayor Heather Graham originally vetoing the ordinance, which city council passed by a vote of 5-2 on August 11.

“People voted to change to a strong Mayor because they were frustrated with the lack of leadership among council members. City council was unable to prove a unified, clear and consistent path forward for the city. Nothing has changed,” Graham wrote, among other things, in her two-page veto letter.

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