Mayor Knox White + city manager John Castile – What do their days look like? What are their responsibilities? ⬇️ *If you didn't read today's email, start at the page break 👍

Knox White is an elected official, a member of City Council, and has been Greenville’s Mayor since 1995. As we noted above, the mayor’s position in Greenville’s form of government is part-time, where Mayor White must juggle his duties to the city with his full time job as partner at the law firm of Haynsworth, Sinkler & Boyd. He is up for reelection every four years (the next election is in 2019), but the state of South Carolina does not have a term limit for municipal officials; so he (and council members) can run as many times as he’d like. Mayor Knox White takes care of things like key strategic projects and neighborhood initiatives. Think...

Construction of new retail including the Mast General Store
Construction of the downtown Fluor Field baseball stadium
Initiation of a bike and walking trail system (Swamp Rabbit Trail) throughout the City
Public art initiatives along Main Street
Removal of the Camperdown Bridge and creation of Falls Park
Restoration of Poinsett Hotel and Court Street
Riverfront development
Attractive new housing in the City’s special emphasis neighborhoods
Enhanced beautification efforts
Master plans for commercial corridors
Reinvestment in neighborhood parks
Sidewalk construction
Support for neighborhood associations

John Castile on the other hand is Greenville’s City Manager and was appointed so by City Council back in 2010. He’s the CEO of the city and manages the day to day. For clarity, he is not an elected official and therefore can be replaced by council. He manages things like…

Establishing the agenda for City Council meetings
Hiring and supervising City employees
Implementing policies approved by City Council
Presenting the annual budget, overseeing capital improvement programs

To keep things easy, in a strong mayor scenario, the mayor would take on the combined responsibilities of both Knox White and John Castile. Another key difference is that a majority of council members can fire a manager. It cannot fire an elected mayor.

Lastly, do you like our current form of government? If so, let us know why. If you wanted something to change, what would it be?

#DYK: Local communities in South Carolina can choose what form of government they can operate under? In 1975, the Home Rule Act was enacted in South Carolina, which states that local governments are units of state government which ultimately gave them more power.

There are three forms of city government in South Carolina, which are primarily defined by who has the power:

1) Council-manager: This is the current form in Greenville, where the Mayor is elected by it’s citizens, is a member of City Council and a City Manager is appointed by Council.
2) Mayor-council (strong-mayor:) The mayor is the Chief Executive Officer of the city and typically does not hire a City Manager. However, often times an admin is hired to help with the day-to-day.
3) Council (weak mayor): City council hires a city manager and chooses a mayor (rather than being elected).

Under each of the three systems of government in South Carolina, the City’s Council: makes laws, sets policies, and determines annual budgets.

With 207 of the state’s 270 municipalities having less than 5,000 in population, the Mayor-Council (strong mayor) form of government is the most used form in the state, followed by the Council (weak mayor) form.

The City of Greenville as well as the City of Columbia chose the Council-Manager form of government, where the City of Charleston chose the Mayor-Council (strong mayor) form.

Strong mayor, weak mayor… What is the difference? In our case, it’s the presence of a City Manager

In our city’s example (Council-Manager form), Greenville has a mayor (part-time position) and a city manager (full-time position) who work together with City Council to manage the city as well as its growth.

The city manager is responsible for providing an agenda based on City Council’s requests for their review and vote (but does not personally have a vote on the council).

Think of Greenville like a large corporation where John Castile (City Manager) is the “CEO”, and City Council (which includes Mayor Knox White) acts as the “board of directors”.

#DYK: Mayor White’s vote on city council counts just as much as any other city council member? He acts as the honorary head member of council.

Mayor-Council form (strong mayor): On the other side of the state, Charleston runs a strong mayor form of government where Mayor John Tecklenburg takes on the roles of of our mayor and city manager by himself (although a strong mayor may hire an admin to assist). This means he makes more money (raking in an estimated $180,000 a year according to the City’s 2016 records), has more responsibility (managing city employees), and more power (he gets to vote on council where our city manager does not).

What’s good for some, is not good for all...
Columbia attempted a referendum of changing from Council-Manager to a Mayor-Council (strong mayor) form of government back in 2013. It didn’t receive a majority of votes. It was said by those opposed that without a city manager working outside of city council, a strong-mayor could play favorites with council members who support their own initiatives.