By state law, the mayor is our city’s chief administrative officer, responsible for carrying out policies established by the council, and for making sure the city delivers the services citizens expect.

But our ordinances also create the position of city administrator, to “coordinate the activities and functions of all city officers … to implement city ordinances and policies … and to “direct and control the overall operations of the city.”

With a few exceptions – presiding over council meetings and representing the city in certain intergovernmental functions is the mayor’s job, representing the city in labor negotiations the administrator’s – the positions overlap considerably. The question of how to divide up the two-person job is left largely to those holding the posts.

Jobs done in tandem work best when tasks are divided to take fullest advantage of each person’s abilities. That being so, we trust Mayor Darlene Kordonowy’s choice to replace Lynn Nordby as administrator is not someone who mirrors her own strengths, but someone who complements them. Ideally, the new administrator will complement future mayors as well.

Plainly, we don’t know who the island’s future mayors will be. But looking at past elections, it appears that island voters want a mayor who they find approachable, and with whom they can interact comfortably – Mr. or Ms. Nice Guys, like Janet West and Kordonowy, and perhaps the epitome of the form, Dwight Sutton.

If Nordby had any obvious failings, they stemmed from the fact that he, too, is a Nice Guy type. And while that may have complemented the no-nonsense approach of former mayor Sam Granato (who appointed him), there may have been a bit of a vacuum when Nordby was paired with a mayor whose personality was similar to his. This could be compounded by an administrator’s natural deference to the mayor – who is, for the administrator, The Boss.

And now?

Under our form of municipal government, the mayor’s most significant power is to appoint the city’s top positions – indeed, the power of appointment is what distinguishes our so-called “strong mayor” form from the “weak mayor” form, in which a city manager hires subordinates but answers to the council.

So that leaves the question of Nordby’s successor up to Kordonowy…or so you would think. One of the notions

in play during the drafting of the new “Council Manual” – essentially, Marquis of Queensbury Rules for City Hall – was that the mayor should provide the council the resumes of all applicants for department head and other top posts.

One can see the nose appearing under the edge of the tent, and the council – having surveyed the field of applicants – rejecting the mayor’s pick to force the nomination of someone of their own liking. Not that farfetched, given that Nordby is leaving the city in no small measure because he believes his own credibility and authority have been undermined by the present council.

For her part, as reported earlier, the mayor wasted no time appointing a citizen committee to help her find Nordby’s successor. Here’s to a fruitful search – and a fair process.