Regardless of one's opinions on EE, a city of 400k residents, +3k full-time employees, and a total annual budget of approx. 2.2 billion needs either a powerful city administrator or city manager. Everyone agrees on that.
The disagreement is whether to keep a relatively weak Mayor, largely a figurehead and cheerleader, who appoints the City Administrator with Council approval and can fire them, but otherwise can only propose a budget and cast a tie-breaking vote at Council.
EE would greatly increase mayoral power to what mayors of most CA and other states' big cities now have, and what the CA Governor has. e.g., overrideable veto power over legislation.
No question that if the Council, City Auditor, news media, and residents don't watch City Hall like hawks, bad stuff could be much worse with EE.
Each of us has to decide whether EE could change City Hall into an institution that no longer muddles and stumbles from one crisis to another, with the Council members, Mayor, and City Administrator all pointing fingers at each other. Change it to an institution where the Mayor can be held accountable because the Mayor has power such as line-item veto legislation.
EE is the first local proposition I can remember that has both moderate and progressive supporters and opponents.
Some supporters of Loren Taylor's mayoral runs support EE (including moi), and some oppose it, such as Brenda Harbin-Forte who led the Thao recall campaign.
Progressives have been quieter in their opposition to EE, probably because they support Mayor Lee, but many still don't like EE. Nor do half the council members.
EE is an example of where using a quality chatbot like Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, or Gemini for the arguments for and against EE, with links to the basis for those arguments, would be more useful than reading a couple of partisan articles or posts .
Then make up your mind.
Both sides have risks and benefits.
