In the Loop by David R. Johnson

Author:David R. Johnson [Johnson, David R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, Southwest (AZ; NM; OK; TX), Political Science, American Government, State, Public Policy, City Planning & Urban Development, Local, Business & Economics, Development, Economic Development
ISBN: 9781595349231
Google: YYfiDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Trinity University Press
Published: 2020-10-06T01:01:02+00:00

EIGHT

The Political Economy of Military City

1951–1971

San Antonio’s victorious reformers faced two unexpected challenges in the transition to city manager government in 1951: Jack White and Charles A. Harrell. White, a major advocate for reform, did not understand the reformers’ expectations for city manager government; Harrell, the first city manager, did not understand San Antonio. Their misunderstandings would unintentionally provoke the creation of the Good Government League, a political regime dedicated to governing without politicians.

White’s political leadership had been crucial to the campaign for city manager government. He had crushed Alfred Callaghan in the 1949 mayoral election and had then organized his supporters to defeat the remaining boss commissioners in 1951, clearing the way for a referendum on a new charter. Although he had become a local hero among reformers, he had also become a skillful politician accustomed to exercising power. His council colleagues, on the other hand, were political neophytes who lacked practical experience in governing. Charles Harrell was an experienced and widely respected city manager. In the 1920s he had worked in city planning in Cincinnati and had served as its manager before moving on to manage several other cities. When White and his colleagues recruited him in 1951 he had been the city manager for Norfolk, Virginia, since 1946. The Norfolk city council passed a resolution of fulsome praise commending Harrell’s “honesty and character … sound judgment [and] foresight and skillful planning.”1 San Antonio’s reformers had no practical knowledge of how city manager government actually worked, but they had hired an expert who knew how to do his job and had no qualms about exercising authority.

Reformers may not have had a good grasp of the details of city manager government, but they did believe that it was efficient; it eliminated politics from governing; and it enabled elected officials to concentrate on policies and projects that benefited the entire city. White and Harrell, in their separate ways, would educate the reformers about the need to clarify the precise meanings of those benefits.

Harrell began work in an extremely volatile political environment. Disagreements among councilmembers erupted early in 1952 and persisted into late spring 1953. Competing ideas about Harrell’s authority and his proposals combined with a dispute over annexing suburbs to create bitter divisions among councilmembers. For his part, Harrell assumed that the reformers approved of his approach to managing a city—they had, after all, hired him.

San Antonio did not lack for serious problems requiring attention, and Harrell adopted an aggressive approach to solving them. Believing that he needed more resources to solve those problems, he launched a vigorous hiring campaign that added nearly six hundred employees to the tax rolls in a year. He also asked his department heads to submit budget estimates “outlining what is really needed for a respectable city operation.” He combined those estimates into a proposal for the largest budget in the city’s history, along with a request for a twenty-five-cent increase in the tax rate.2

Harrell also believed in preserving the city’s tax base through aggressive annexation.

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