No offense--but small town mayors don't really do much. The city council makes all the decisions.

[ncteechur]

[Muttocracy]

1. and didn't she hire an administrative manager? nt

[ncteechur]

2. Exactly--city managers do the heavy lifting. Mayors just preside over the council meetings.

[hedgehog]

6. Well, she had to have her time free to harass the librarian and police chief!

[Blue Diadem]

7. She sure did.

Read somewhere that the city manager position paid $50k while her position paid $68K. Prior to her taking office, the position had been vacant for years.

[beac]

10. Bingo!

WHY won't any of the talking heads bring this up re: her Mama Mayor credentials??

Grrrr......

[ContinentalOp]

3. I'm not really worried about who's making the "decisions" in bumfuck AK,

pop. not worth counting.

[livetohike]

4. I'm sure she banged that gavel a few times to bring order

What impresses me less than her thin resume, is her lack of formal education.

[NJmaverick]

5. small town mayor is usually a part time position

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. Hell, I'm surprised that Governor of Alaska isn't a p/t job. nt

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

8. She did do several major things as mayor

including trying to ban library books that had what she considered blasphemous language, trying to fire the librarian when she wouldn't ban them, running the town $22 million into debt, and firing the police chief without reason.

[HooptieWagon]

9. That depends on the city charter

Some may have a strong mayor, some may have a strong city council, some may have a strong manager. In the case of Wasilla, there wasn't a manager until Palin was elected, so it's safe to assume there was a strong mayor, but Palin quickly proved to not be up to the day to day job so council was forced to hire a manger... or she did.

[greenvpi]

12. You beat me to it.

Almost every town is unique in the power the mayor has. I've been involved with one mayor that was basically just an empty suit that attended events, and I've also worked for a mayor that ran almost everything despite having a highly paid city manager. It just depends. Some of the differences are based upon inertia for the particular city, some are based upon immediate need, and some are based upon law.