DeKalb voters may rein in CEO’s power

It doesn’t sound like much compared to a presidential election, but a referendum on the November ballot in DeKalb County proposes a potentially important shift in the local balance of power.

Early voters casting absentee ballots at the county election office will be the first to say whether the county commission’s presiding officer should run board meetings and whether the commission should set its own agenda.

If voters go for the change, it will end more than two decades of strong — some say autocratic — control by a succession of county chief executive officers.

The confrontations between current CEO Vernon Jones and some commissioners are legend. The conflicts may stem at least in part from Jones’ authority to run commission meetings and to set its agenda as spelled out in the county charter. The terms of his predecessors, Liane Levetan and Manuel Maloof, were also marked by political infighting between the CEO and the commission that may have been aggravated by the distribution of power.

The DeKalb CEO runs both the day-to-day operations of the county and the deliberations of its legislative body, the seven-member county commission. The CEO shapes its agenda, then moderates the discussion.

Critics say that is like a governor telling legislators what they can or cannot vote on and choosing who gets to speak, or like a mayor running the city council. There are rare examples of other CEO-run counties across the United States, but no others in Georgia. Most counties in the state follow models that separate executive and legislative powers, share administrative powers among county commissioners or delegate daily administration to a professional manager hired by the elected commissioners.

“Those other models don’t have the kind of power that the DeKalb CEO has,” said state Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Ellenwood), a sponsor of the referendum. The current balance of power has resulted in division and controversy, he said.

Some residents shake their heads in disbelief when they see their local leaders in action. Kelley McManaman came from her home in northeast DeKalb for a public hearing last year. She waited all morning for a turn at the microphone as commissioners and the CEO sparred over procedural rules and whose turn it was to speak.

It was “amateurish,” she said. “I just thought it was ridiculous.”

Vernon Jones has defended the current structure as streamlined and effective.

“You’ve got to have one person in charge,” he said two years ago, when legislators began considering the proposal. “You can’t have all chiefs and no Indians.”

In recent years, both he and Levetan have also criticized what they said was unnecessary spending by commissioners, as the legislative branch hired a handful of staffers to vet administration proposals.

But the power shift referendum has important supporters, including the chair of the county’s legislative delegation, state Rep. Stan Watson. He ran for CEO this year yet supported the proposed restructuring.

Emanuel Jones said that Watson was instrumental in its passage in the state Legislature.

Every member of the county commission supports the proposal now, including newly elected CEO Burrell Ellis, who would become the first chief executive to operate under it.

Still, it remains to be seen whether changing the balance of power will really change much, including the bickering.

Commissioners will inevitably disagree and argue. Levetan, a veteran of two four-year terms as CEO and a decade on the commission, said no structure can impose civility.

That’s up to the people involved, she said. “You can politicize anything if you want to.”