Any outlaws fixin’ to rustle some cows or rob a stagecoach best think of avoiding Iola, Kansas.
Otherwise, they could have some of Bill Shirley’s men on their tail.
Shirley, voted Tuesday to become Iola’s next mayor, can’t imagine ever having to use the authority.
But with Iola’s new city council to be sworn in later this month comes a number of Kansas laws that define the mayor’s powers with the new local form of government.
One privilege, as noted in Kansas Statute 14-309, allows the mayor “to call on every male inhabitant of the city over 18 years of age and under the age of 50 years to aid in enforcing the laws.”
Which means?
“The mayor can form his own posse,” Iola City Attorney Chuck Apt clarified.
Iola’s male populace may want to wait before grabbing their shotguns and torches to chase after varmints, Shirley said. After all, Iola and Allen County already have a highly skilled police force.
And Shirley noted he has no plans to start putting up “Wanted: Dead or Alive” posters.
THE NEW mayor’s role will be significantly different from its current form.
Today, the mayor is one of three voting members of the Iola City Commission. But as with the other two commissioners, his power is removed “as soon as he walks out of City Hall,” Apt said. “He’s like any other citizen.”
But with a mayor-council government, the mayor’s authority does not end when a council meeting is adjourned. He can perform a number of administrative tasks at any time.
Including forming posses.
“With the new council, the authority the mayor has is explicit,” Apt said. “Those powers are very broad,”
While Shirley will vote only to break ties in a city council meeting, he also has the right to veto any council action (aside from appropriations measures). Those vetoes can be overridden only by a two-thirds (six members) super-majority.
Kansas law also gives the new mayor “superintending control of all the officers and affairs of the city.”
That means exactly what it says, Apt explained. “The mayor carries a pretty big stick.”
In Iola’s case, the law regarding city councils is noteworthy for what it doesn’t mention — authority for a city administrator. Instead, the mayor’s “superintending control” gives him most of those duties.
“The city administrator’s position is a creature of a city ordinance, not a creature of state law,” Apt said.
It will be up to the new council to determine whether the administrator’s duties are kept the same, expanded to include the power to hire and fire city employees or even reduced, in which case the mayor would assume more control.
The administrator’s duties carries an added urgency with the pending retirement of City Administrator Judy Brigham in September.
With the search for her replacement already in place, city officials listed Brigham’s current job description, with the caveat that the new council could alter some of those job duties.
“I can’t imagine the duties being much different (for the administrator) than what they are now,” Shirley said. “I’m not in this as a quest for power.”
THE MAYOR’S duties, as well as other measures, can be altered through charter ordinances, Apt said, which require a super majority, plus a 60-day protest period for Iolans to object to any changes.
Charter ordinances also would be used to set up staggered elections rather than having all eight council members and the mayor up for re-election every two years.
“But it’s important to remember that much of that won’t happen overnight,” Apt said. “Some of those charter ordinances won’t be allowed to take effect for two years.”
The staggered election process can begin in April 2013 at the earliest.
“But that also gives the council plenty of time to think these things through,” Apt said. “Whether the council wants to maintain these charter ordinances is up to them.”
Shirley said he was confident the mayor’s and administrator’s roles would be defined in short order “so that the city will continue to operate efficiently.”
