Bluffdale Council puts lid on mayor

BLUFFDALE — She's still Bluffdale's mayor, but Claudia Anderson now has significantly less say over the day-to-day operations of the city.

The City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to create the position of a city manager and hand the administrative duties to that city manager, a job it gave to administrative services director Brent Bluth.

"This thing's broke. It's got to be fixed," Councilman Bill Maxwell said of the city's government under Anderson.

"I am no longer going to sit still and have people tell me that I do something I don't do," Anderson tearfully said, denying she micromanages the city. "If we change the form of government, I think it's the wrong thing to do. The check and balance is out of balance."

The vote came after yet another contentious public meeting, this one mired in argument about how to run the meeting. Council members wanted to establish rules limiting the time and subject matter of public comment; Anderson wanted a more free-wheeling meeting.

The debate has often been seen as a referendum on Anderson's leadership style. Tuesday, residents were supposed to talk instead about the pros and cons of different forms of government.

But that didn't stop residents from accusing either Anderson or the council of misusing power.

"I did not vote for you so you could change the form of city government," resident Herb Flower said. "This seems like something that would happen in South America. Instead of using guns, you're using Robert's Rules of Order."

Some residents, as well as the council, wanted to see Anderson's powers quelled.

"We're talking about an administrator who knows how to fix the bus instead of the president of the company that made the bus," said Mike Sorensen, a developer who said he has been stymied by Anderson as he has attempted to fix a canal running through his property.

The council began discussing publicly the idea of installing a city manager — which the city had from 1995 to 2002 — after Anderson fired Bluth in early September.

Anderson has been accused of overseeing a staff suffering low morale and high turnover. She has revamped the membership of the planning commission and overturned the city's arts board.

Under the change, the mayor remains the chair of the six-member council. She presides over the meetings but does not vote, except in the case of a tie. With the addition of a city manager to the staff, the mayor also has a vote on the hiring or firing of that manager.

The mayor also remains a representative of the city in so-called ex-officio positions, such as on the transportation- and growth-planning Wasatch Front Regional Council.

But running the city on a daily basis, including oversight of city staff, will fall under the city manager's job description.

Chances are, this is not the end of the debate. Linda Robertson, a resident opposed to the change, said in a previous meeting she would seek a citywide referendum vote giving residents the option to repeal the manager ordinance. On Tuesday, she said she would wait 90 days to see how the change works out.

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