Governing Interlocal Cooperation: City Council Interests and the Implications for Public Management

Abstract

Local government managers are described as key participants in the development of interlocal cooperation, but the interests of city councils in this process have gone largely unstudied. Here, the author addresses the theoretical importance of council‐manager relations in interlocal public service cooperation. Three propositions identify areas of shared council‐manager responsibility. Evidence from in‐depth interviews with city council members is used to assess each proposition. While interlocal partnership has been described as a managerial activity, council members take an interest in network development and agreement assessment. Managers, on the other hand, give greater attention to public participation and education. The evidence refines assumptions about council‐manager roles in the formation of cooperative agreements, with important implications for local government management.

Recent Developments in the Study of Interjurisdictional Agreements: An Overview and Assessment

“…They may include fee-forservice contracts, arrangements for coordinating service provision or sharing equipment or facilities, joint planning agreements, commitments to provide mutual aid upon request, and intergovernmental boundary agreements to share tax revenues from development, coordinate land-use decisions, and negotiate other potentially contentious border issues (U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations 1985; Nunn and Rosentraub 1997;Zeemering 2008b). Transactions that require financial transfers usually are formalized in order to protect the property rights of the participating governments.…”

Editorial Overview: Symposium on Mixed and Hybrid Models of Public Service Delivery

“…Inter-municipal cooperation is one of the features of contemporary local government management (Zeemering, 2008), and it has been growing, especially in the US (Hefetz, Warner and Vigoda-Gadot 2012). It is seen as an alternative to consolidation (Thurmaier and Wood 2004); instead of focusing on amalgamating or consolidating governments, the focus here lies on "functional consolidation" of services through shared delivery arrangements (Holzer and Fry 2011).…”

The Economic Development Strategy Preferences of Community Leaders in Texas

“…Cities in Texas that reach the 5,000 population threshold can adopt a home rule charter that allows greater taxing flexibility, along with greater flexibility in areas such as government organization and annexation, by comparison to cities with a population below 5,000 that operate under a general charter. Regarding our set of surveyed city leaders, prior research points to the role played by city managers and mayors in city economic development (see, for example, French, 2003;Liu & Vanderleeuw, 2004;McCabe, Feiock, Clingermayer, & Stream, 2009;McGovern, 1997;Svara, 1987) as well as the involvement of city councils (Zemmering, 2008), chambers of commerce (Cox & Wood, 1994), and economic development corporations (EDCs; Jarmon, Vanderleeuw, Pennington, & Sowers, 2012 …”