Opinion: An Elected Mayor Won’t Fix Everything, but It Might Help
Winter street scene in Amherst, Photo: Rizwana Khan
Social Injustice Goes Global
Recently, Raymond La Raja, a professor of political science at UMass, made this case in the Daily Hampshire Gazette, not that Amherst lacks democracy, but quite the opposite. We have public comment, committees, subcommittees, listening sessions, working groups, task forces—an abundance of voice. His concern is that all this participation doesn’t reliably translate into decisions anyone can clearly own. Democracy, in his telling, isn’t just about being heard but about the system’s capacity to act. When authority is too diffuse, accountability dissolves and trust follows.
The remedy he proposes is structural clarity: an elected mayor with visible executive authority who voters can reward or punish and whose name appears next to outcomes.
That theory helps explain why many friends and colleagues who share my dissatisfaction with Amherst’s current Home Rule Charter believe that replacing our appointed Town Manager with an elected mayor would solve the problem.
I agree—though not without ambivalence. I live in Amherst, but I measure time by Northampton. By how long it takes to bike down Route 9 and whether I’m meeting someone at Haymarket or Pulaski Park and by how often someone says, “Well, in Northampton they just decided that.”
That last part matters. Northampton has something Amherst doesn’t: a mayor. Not a myth or a managerial abstraction but a person whose name people actually know and you can like, dislike, vote for, vote out, argue with at a City Council meeting, or yell about on Facebook and then immediately regret.
In Amherst, power feels misty. Decisions happen, but no one seems to own them. Ask who’s responsible for a zoning decision, a housing project, or a budget choice and you get a flowchart instead of an answer: Council did this, the Manager recommended that and a board approved something else. Everyone gestures sideways.
Northampton doesn’t do that. Not because it’s purer, smarter, or magically immune to dysfunction but because the system insists on a face.
When Northampton needed fiscal stability after the Great Recession, it wasn’t a committee that took the credit or the blame but the mayor. When downtown changed, housing debates heated up, and schools and city services competed for funding, people knew who to pressure. That didn’t make everyone happy, but it made things legible.
And legibility is underrated as we grew up being told to “be engaged,” “show up,” “participate.” But participation requires knowing where to aim your energy. Amherst’s council–manager system tells us to aim everywhere at once, which is functionally the same as nowhere.
An elected mayor doesn’t fix voter apathy, money in politics, or the fact that half of us are exhausted and working two jobs but it does something small and radical and simplifies the story of power.
Northampton voters don’t need to understand the internal mechanics of appointments to know whether things feel like they’re moving in the right direction. They don’t need a background in municipal governance to know who to vote out when they’re mad. Democracy, at its best, doesn’t require a manual.
Critics of mayoral systems are right to worry about consolidation of power. History gives us plenty of reasons to be nervous about strong executives but Amherst already has consolidated power consolidated quietly, through appointments, professional norms, and a culture of consensus that makes dissent feel impolite.
At least a mayor has to knock on doors, must explain themselves in public and to face voters every four years and hear, plainly, whether the town is buying what they’re selling.
In Northampton, the mayor prepares the budget. The City Council argues about it and everyone understands that dance. In Amherst, the choreography is so complex that by the time the music stops, most residents have left the room.
This isn’t about loving Northampton or hating Amherst but about admitting that our expectations of local government are modest—plow the snow, fix the potholes, don’t embarrass us—and that our current system struggles even with that because no one clearly owns the outcome.
Even seeing Northampton, a visible mayoral face doesn’t automatically fix systemic weaknesses. Without reforms addressing participation, equity, and the invisible influence of PACs, an elected mayor alone will not make Amherst more democratic.
Still, an elected mayor would make Amherst more legible—more virtuous in the sense of clarity and accountability, and more honest about power, responsibility, and failure. Residents would know who to praise, who to question, and who ultimately carries the consequences when things go wrong. That transparency, even imperfect, is itself a radical step toward real democracy.
Rizwana Khan is a writer, educator, and human rights advocate in the Town of Amherst.
Thanks for this. I tend to agree: Amherst needs an elected mayor, like Northampton has. The current structure, as the article notes, is “too diffuse.” Responsibility for problems, etc., can’t be readily identified and can’t be easily remedied by removing or voting in a new ADMINISTATION!
The interesting thing about this topic is that the Amherst Forward contingent on the Charter Commission, including current Town Councilors Andy Churchill and Mandi Jo Hanneke, championed having a mayor because they wanted a strong executive. The “independents” on the commission strongly opposed having a mayor for the same reason. At the ninth hour, a compromise was made in order to get enough resident votes to pass the Charter. Here is current Council President Mandi Jo Hanneke’s memo on why a mayor is better. https://www.amherstma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/37703/Hanneke-Mayor-Council-Choice-Narrative. An elected mayor would be better than what we have now, but Town Meeting was by far more democratic.
I wrote an opinion piece about this recently and won’t repeat it here. But ever since the Supreme Court, in Citizens United, decided that money was speech, elections in the United States have the form but not the substance of democracy. In Amherst, neither popularity nor dark money will assure us of a qualified executive leader, any more than they have in the United States.
Town Meeting is a cherished memory but our town has changed (by design) and Town Meeting is not an option. I would rather have a trained and knowledgeable Town Manager than an elected mayor. The question is, who hires such a manager?
Another plus for NoHo—at least for the couple of meetings I’ve attended—is that everybody in the zoom audience is visibly on the screen. We can’t even access the list of attendees in the zoom audience, nor know how many are there. And the last Amherst zoning board meeting, even the board members, I was told by staff, didn’t know who was in the room.
With South Amherst, East Amherst and now north Amherst out of the loop when Town Hall has big plans for these neighborhoods Amherst feels more like DC daily. Citizens have lost so much power with so much power to an unaccountable Town Hall.
I am confused about this opinion piece about Amherst government and the one by Mr. La Raja. Under this government, the Town Council has the legislative authority to pass bylaws and appropriate funds, the power to set policy and to appoint the Town Manager, as well as some appointments. Pretty much all the government power is the Town Council’s hands, although the Town Manager has consolidated considerable soft power, since he makes many appointments, tightly controls town staff and information. He also sets the final budget submitted to the Town Council. The School Committee-Superintendent power structure is pretty clear. I am wondering if the problem is that the writer here can’t figure out who made a decision–or if they don’t like the decisions being made? I am guessing it’s the latter–and the same for Mr. La Raja, but it’s never stated. If both thought the new town government was making great decisions, what would be the point in seeking reforms?
I think the voters would be more comfortable if they had a direct vote as to who the person at the head is (a mayor). They would be more comfortable feeling that they were part of a democracy. It is a democracy now but of a much different style. I am wondering if those that oppose this idea are concerned that the mayor would not be in alignment with their own personal beliefs. Not necessarily so. Somebody I know (not connected with the town of Amherst) always expresses discontentment with those presently in power. This was actually during the last presidency. I have become more philosophical, I told him that there are roughly 170 million registered voters in the United States, and they get a vote also. I personally can’t get too wound up because they voted against my personal wishes. I can express my opinions and take other actions though, like voting for the people that represent my state. Anyway, shifting gears, I just get a feeling that those that are against Amherst having a mayor are concerned that this individual “might” not be in alignment with their own beliefs. This may not be necessarily so. I guess I already said that. As to the charter, the charter does not expressly prohibit the manager from expressing his or her own opinions, however this person is expected through their own professional duties to have the best interests of the town at heart. As to my opinion that I express, it would be subjective. I will just say that the present town manager has not hesitated to personally put quite a bit of unnecessary weight behind certain issues, quite often against the wishes of the voters.