THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

THE STAUNTON STORY 1908-1973, IBy EDWARD L. MORl~ON and WELDON COOPER

VOL. 49, NO.8

Mr. Morton is a Research Aide and Mr.Cooper is Professor of Government andDirector, both of the Institute of Governmentat the University of Virginia.

With the election of a citymanager, Staunton passes into anew era. It is hoped and believedthat this move is a strong one inthe right direction . . ..

The eyes of the whole Statewill be centered upon theadministration in Staunton, andthe hearty cooperation of everybranch and department of the citygovernment and the individualcitizens, should be brought to bearwith the efforts of the manager, tomake the new office the success itpromises to be under such a plan. 1

Sixty-five years ago, on April 2,1908, these editorial words in theStaunton Daily Leader lauded theinauguration of the central administratorin Virginia local government. And theelection of Charles E. Ashburner asStaunton's, and the nation's, first citymanager was not only destined to beregarded as perhaps the most significantAmerican "governmental invention" ofthe first half of the twentieth century,

1. William A. Grubert, The Origin of theCity Manager Plan in Staunton, Virginia(Staunton: City of Staunton, 1954), p. 22.Mr. Grubert was a member of the StauntonCity Council, 1932-1956, and Mayor of theCity of Staunton, 1934-1936 and 1940-1955.

This is the first of two articles on thecentral administrator. in Virginia localgovernment. The second article will appear inthe May 15, 1973 issue. Portions of twoCommentaries by the present authors inVirginia Town & City 7 (October 1972):12-13 and 7 (November 1972): 15, 18-19have been included with the permission of theVirginia Municipal League.

but also was to spur other localitieswithin and without the State in a likedirection. With this anniversary at hand,the time seems appropriate to present anaccount of the extent of developmentand the spread of that plan amongVirginia's cities, counties, and towns.Mayor Grubert's work referred to abovehad the following objective: "It is thispart of the Staunton Story-the originand early years of the city managerplan-that will be told here."2 Thisarticle and the one to follow constitutea continuation of the Staunton Story inVirginia in the years after 1908.

The sixty-five years under observationcan be divided in general into five parts.

2. Ibid., p. 6. The terms "manager,""central administrator," and "administrator"are· used interchangeably throughout these twoarticles.

The first of these, of course, \S thetwo-year period beginning in Stauntonin 1906 and culminating in the events of1908. The second part relates to theslow but consistent spread of the idea toother Virginia cities by the early fifties.The third part examines the reception ofthe central administrator in the Virginiatown over a period of time whichpartially overlapped but in large partsaw its greatest growth after the planhad become a commonplace in thecit ies. The fourth part is largelyconcerned with the Virginia county,which was the last unit of localgovernment to welcome the managerplan but wh ich has opened the doorwide in the form of numerous adoptionsin recent years. A fifth and concludingpart presents a summary statement ofth e preva iii ng trends and some

INSTITUTE OF GOVERNMENT / UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA / CHARLOTTESVILLE / APRIL 15, 1973

specu.lation about the reasons for thosetrends.

THE PLAN EMERGES

The manager appeared in Virginia'scities in one of two ways. In the firstinstance, as in Staunton and later inNorfolk and Lynchburg, his appearancewas preceded by either an official actionof the city council in the form of anord inance or a new charter granted bythe General Assembly, which providedfor the establishment of the position ofcity manager. This action was thenfollowed by an active recruiting periodand the selection and formalappointment of a manager. A secondapproach, which was used inFredericksburg and other cities., wasevolutionary in nature in that a cityemployee over the years was givenadditional assignments which in timetransformed the position into that of afu IIfledged manager. The experiences ofStaunton and Fredericksburg providespecific examples of these twoapproaches.

THE STAUNTON APPROACH

Stau nton was incorporated as a townin 1801 and became a city on itsseparation from Augusta County in1871. Prior to 1906 Stau nton wasgoverned under the terms of its 1894Charter which provided for a mayor anda unicameral council of twelvemembers.3 In 1905 following Staunton'sannexation of territory from neighboringAugusta County, a special censusrevealed that the city had attained apopu lation of 11,366 and thereforefaced a drastic reorgan ization of itsgoverning body. That reorganization wascompe"ed by the requirement of theVirginia Constitution of 1902 that allcities having a population of 10,000 ormore must have a bicameral council.The end result was a bicameral councilof twenty-two members, eight membersfor the board of aldermen and fourteenmembers for the common council, inplace of a unicameral council of twelvemembers. The system of committeeadministration which had prevailedunder the unicameral council continuedunder the bicameral council. There werefifteen committees of six members each,with three members from each body,assigned to administer various cityactivities such as streets, fire protection,health, finance, etc. In a very real sense,city government consisted of ru Ie by

3. The account given here of the Stauntonapproach has been taken almost wholly fromGrubert, The Origin of the City Manager Plan.

30

committees since the mayor had noadministrative duties.

In his detailed account of the eventsbetween 1906 and 1908, Mayor Grubertwas preeminently correct in labeling oneof the sections of his book: "Mud, theCornerstone of the City Manager Plan."Streets were built and maintained underthe direction of a superintendent ofstreets who reported to the streetcommittee. The street situation inStaunton was especially acute. With thesingle exception of the small downtownbusiness area, the city and its suburbshad developed on hilly ground.Conditions became so critical that inJuly 1906 a member of the commoncouncil proposed that the advisabil ity ofhiring an engineer to oversee streetconstruction and maintenance beconsidered. The proposal was approvedand the street committee made itsreport to the common council in August1906.

That report went far beyond itslimited assignment, however, and made arecommendation which was to come tofruition in 1-908. The proposal called forthe creation of the position ofIIMunicipal Director" which wouldassume all the administrative duties ofthe council committees. In thecommittee's words:

The duties of such an employeewould be to carry out all workwhich the Council, or itsCommittees directed to be done ... . In short, such an employeewould have the duties generallyimposed upon the general managerof a business corporation, and inhim would combine the duties inother cities imposed upon paidheads of departments; he would bethe manager or Superintendent ofthe city's work . ... He should be[appointed by and] directlyresponsible to the Council andunder its immediate control. 4

Ironically enough, the germ of theidea expressed in the committee's reportcame from the experience of JohnCrosby, a member of the commoncouncil who had served for fifteen yearsas a member of the staff of the courtclerk of Augusta County. As Mr. Crosbytells the story in later years:

. . . . r was Clerk of the Boardof Supervisors which is thegoverning body of the 'county. AsI kept the records and attended to

4. This quotation and the one whichfollows are taken from ibid., p. 12 and pp.13-14 , respectively.

all the business under thejurisdiction of the board, reportingdirectly to them in carrying out itsinstructions for the government ofthe county, I was in a sense theGeneral Manager or ExecutiveOfficer for Augusta County.

. . . . If the affairs of AugustaCounty were operated with agoverning board of six membersand an executive secretary, whywas it necessary to have abicameral council of twenty-twomembers and [fifteen] standingcommittees to operate the affairsof the City of Staunton?

. . . . My idea was to simplifythe governmental machinery andreplace the committees with ageneral manager appointed by thecouncil, and working under thecouncil, to attend to all thebusiness of the city, reporting tothe council.

Despite the influence of a county'sexperience in these early days, the ideawas to take hold first in the cities withthe counties following some decadeslater.

From the summer of 1906 to early1908, the proposal received theattention of the two branches of thebicameral council. On January 13, 1908the common council passed theo rd ina nce providing for a generalmanager by a vote of seven to two; theboard of aldermen followed three dayslater by a favorable vote of five to one.Thus the Staunton approach involvingonly one step came to a fruitfulconclusion.

THE FREDERICKSBURG APPROACH

"Fredericksburg had a city managerbefore it had heard of the city managerplan."s In that city, in contrast with theexperience of Staunton, the approachwas evolutionary with the city managerplan coming into existence by a processof accretion. If the approaches in thetwo cities were different, however, theimmediate cause was the same, namelythe poor condition of the streets.

5. Harold A. Stone, Don K. Price, andKathryn H. Stone, "Fredericksburg, Virginia,"in City Manager Government in Nine Cities(Chicago: Public Administration Service,

1940), p. 113. Th is account of the earlyexperience of Fredericksburg with the citymanager plan, which may be found on pp.107-132 of the previously cited volume, hasbeen relied on completely for this summary ofthe Fredericksbu rg approach.

31

The Manager in Towns of 2,500 Population and Above, 1973

Municipal Manager Plan Adoptions, 1908-1972

Staunton did not long stand alone asthe only Virginia city with a manager.As already noted, Fredericksburg withits "city comm issioner" followedStaunton's example in 1912; thefollowing year Charlottesville did the

was not possible legally to delegate to acity employee authority over the schoolboard, board of health ~ and the policedepartment since these agencies hadbeen created by the General Assembly.

The committee proposed, and thecouncil approved, the creation of theposition of "city commissioner" to befilled by the citV council for a two-yearterm. The city commissioner was givenall the administrative duties which hadpreviously been exercised by thecommittees of council. The council,however, reserved to itself the power toappo int certain department heads.Excluded from the commissioner'scontrol were the agencies noted aboveand the fire department. Nevertheless,approximately half of the city'sadmin istrative business was handed overto the new official. As was the case inStaunton, the council went outside forits first city commissioner who tookoffice on September 1, 1912.

There was no rush to put into effectevery detail of the new plan. The citycommissioner reported to theappropriate committees and thec h air men continued their previouspractice of reporting directly to thecouncil. For the time being, no move

97.8

33

34

97.0

181

185

MANAGER,

was made to centralize purchasing, andmany of the other powers assigned tothe city commissioner were notimmediately assumed. In a few months,however, a number of committees beganto delegate responsibi lities to the citycommissioner beginning with technicalmatters since the city commissioner wasthe only qualified engineer on the citypayroll. Gradually over the next twoyears the city commissioner eitherassumed or was specifically directed bycouncil to take over additional duties.The increasing centralization of themanagement function was officiallyconfirmed in December 1914 when thecouncil by ordinance changed the titleof the position from city commissionerto city manager. Indeed, Fredericksburgdid have a city manager before it hadheard of the city manager plan.

THE CITY MANAGER

THE MUNICIPAL

1908-1973

The sixty-five years since Staunton'spioneering effort have seen the managerplan become an accepted feature ofVirginia municipal government. All ofthe thirty-nine cities in existence inearly 1973 had a manager (Table 1).Likewise, all but one of the thirty-fourtowns of 2,500 population and abovehad a central administrator, andnineteen towns under 2,500 populationalso had managers. Few indeed were thepeople who lived in a Virginiamunicipality without a manager.

Table 2

11016158

20183

91

Total Adoptions

24

114

13153

52

Percentage of Total TownPopulation with a Manager

Number of Town Managers

Population of Townswith a Manager (thousands)

Number of Towns

Percentage of Towns with a Manager

Total Town Population (thousands)

Town Adoptions

Table 1

39

18

124473

City AdoptionsYears

Fredericksburg was incorporated as atown in 1781 and became a city on itsseparation from Spotsylvania County in1879. In 1910 when the movementbegan which culminated in the citymanager plan, Fredericksburg wasgoverned, under the terms of a chartergranted by the General Assembly in1821, by a mayor and a councilcomposed of twelve members. Thecouncil chose one of its members aspresident to preside over its meeti ngs.While the mayor was in theory the chiefexecutive, the, real power was exercisedby the committees of the council whichfunctioned in much the same fashion aswas the case in Staunton prior to 1908and with much the same unsatisfactoryresults.

I n March 1910 the mayor ofFredericksburg in h is annual report tothe city council noted the coming of theautomobile and recommended that aregular program for street improvementsbe undertaken. That following June, thepresident of the council formallyapproved the mayor's proposal andsuggested an annual outlay of $5,000 tobe spent under the supervision of thefinance and street committees. To assistthese committees in their work thepresident recommended theestablishment of the new position of"street commissioner." Although the idealay dormant for some eighteen months, itwas revived by local interests whichwished to encourage the development ofthe tourist trade.

In January 191 2 the councilauthorized the appointment of a specialcommittee to evaluate the present andfuture needs of the city with specialemphasis on the form of government.The committee promptly undertook itstask and one month later del ivered tothe council a report with farreachingrecommendations. The proposals wouldhave been even more drastic if thecommittee had not concluded that it

19081910-19191920-19291930-19391940-19491950-19591960-19691970-1972Total

sa me. Other early adoptions wereWinchester (1915), Portsmouth (1917),Norfolk and Roanoke (1918), andBristol and Suffolk (1919). As thelocation of these cities shows, themovement was Statewide with noconcentration in anyone part ofVirginia. .

These nine cities were followedduring the twenties by twelve additionalcities.6 The rate of adoption sloweddown during the thirties and forties withfour adoptions in each decade. Thenumber of adoptions increased to sevenin the fifties and was completed in theearly sixties with three adoptions. Thus,all thirty-nine cities in existence in early1973 had a manager? These cities had acombined population of 1.9 million or

-£pproximate/y-.11 percent of the State'stotal population.

THE TOWN MANAGE R

The Virginia town, especially thosewith a population of 2,500 and over,has shown a preference for the managerplan but at a different rate of growthand at a later time than the cities. To besure, the Town of Blackstone was thefourth municipality and first town toadopt the plan in 1914, and the Town

6. A town which had a centraladministrator at the time it became a city andseparated from the surrounding county isrecorded as having had a manager sinceadopting the plan as a town. Thus.Waynesboro, which did not become a cityuntil 1948, is noted as having had themanager plan since adopting it while a townin 1928.

7. The number of cities will drop tothirty-eight on January 1, 1974 when thecities of Nansemond and Suffolk merge as theCity of Suffolk.

NEWSLETTER

Editor I WlIldon COoper

Published on the 15th of llIICh monthfrom Sep18mber th~ June by theInstitute of Government UniverlJty ofVirginia, ClwtotteIville, Virgin" 22903.The views end opinIonS expr-d hereinere those of the liuthor, end ere not to beInterDreted • ~Ing the officialposItlon of the Institute or the University.

Entered. MC:OflC:I.c:'- matter January 2,1926, at the post office at CherlottMvilla,Virginia, under the 8Ct of August 24, 1912.

(C) 1973 by The Rector and Vlsltorw ofthe university of Virginia.

Printed by the University Printing Office.

32

of Farmville followed suit the next year.The momentum was not sustained,however, as six years elapsed before theTown of Warrenton appointed amanager in 1920. Only three townadoptions occurred during the remainderof the twenties: Crewe in 1926 andManassas and Wytheville in 1927.

The bulk of the town adoptionsoccurred in three spurts-first in thethirties, then in the fifties, and finally inthe sixties. The six towns with managersat the end of the twenties were joinedby eleven additional towns in thethirties for a total of seventeen townmanagers by the end of that decade.Preoccupation with World War IIresulted in only four adoptions in theforties. The second and third spurtsoccurred in the fifties with th irteenadoptions and inthe sixties with fifteennew manager towns. Three townsadopted the plan in the years 1970-1972so that there were fifty-two towns withmanagers by early 1973.

Another way of depicting the scopeof adoptions of the manager plan byVirginia's towns is to divide the townsinto those with a population of 2,500and above and those below 2,500. As ofearly 1973, thirty-three towns with apopulation of 2,500 and over had amanager (Table 2). Only one town inthat population group had notappointed a manager. These thirty-threetowns had a population of 181 thousandor 97.8 percent of the total townpopulation in the category of 2,500 andabove. The towns below 2,500population numbered 156 in early 1973.Nineteen of these towns, or 12.1percent of the total, had managers inearly 1973. The towns below 2,500population with managers' had 23.4

percent of the total town population inthat category.

A COMMON FEATURE

To the observer, then, the centraladministrator is as much a commonfeature of Virginia city government as isthe city council. It is also safe to saythat any new city incorporations willbring with them additional managers.This is especially true if thoseincorporations inVOlve any of the townswh ich presently have or are near therequired minimum population of 5,000for city status since almost all of thesetowns already have managers. It may befurther expected that as towns increasein population the need for services willalso grow, and that this need will fostera move to -----select an administratorresponsible for the coordination andadministration of those services. Supportfor this conclusion is found in the factthat almost 98 percent of the total townpopulation of 2,500 and above wasbeing served by an administrator in early1973. Moreover, of the total populationof more than 2.2 million residing inVirginia's cities and towns, more than2.1 million or approximately 95 percent,were living under a local governmentwith a manager.

Staunton's lead has therefore beenfollowed by all the cities and practicallyall of the larger towns in Virginia. Oneamong a number of reasons for thepopularity of the manager idea has beenthe willingness of the General Assemblyto grant broad flexibility to itsmunicipalities in their choice of a formof government. This same influence, aswill be noted in the article to follow, iscurrently at work in Virginia's counties.

Entered as second-class matterCharlottesville, Virginia