Figurehead position rotates among five council members
There may be a point when Hollister has the same mayor for more than a year and everybody in town has a say on who gets the job.
Hollister officials will investigate the possibility of citizens electing an at-large mayor while swapping out a long-established rotation among council members who fill the role.
Council members directed staff at Monday’s meeting to look into the “nut and bolts” involved with making such a switch, said City Manager Clint Quilter. They also heard from several citizens in a group called the New Urbanism Committee who spoke about benefits of making such a change.
One of them was Gordon Machado, who’s also on the city’s planning and airport commissions. He said today that the move would amount to citizens being better represented – because each of the five council members who serve as mayor now are elected by one-fifth of the population.
An at-large officer is elected by the entire city, as opposed to being chosen by a single district.
“The mayor will be the focal point of the community,” Machado said.
City officials will examine how it would work legally, how other nearby cities’ at-large mayors fit into their systems and how it would affect council members’ function, he said. They also must decide if they would pursue it as a full-time or part-time position and how long the terms would last.
Hollister is designated as a “general law” city, as opposed to “charter” cities that maintain their own constitutions. Quilter noted that most cities with at-large mayors also have council members elected at large as well.
Hollister council members are elected by only citizens in their districts. Machado mentioned the possibility of also looking into whether Hollister would maintain the same number of council districts.
In the current system, the five council members vote annually who among them will be mayor and they traditionally have rotated the position from year to year. Hollister’s mayor is Councilman Doug Emerson.
