Voters in Madison on Tuesday will determine whether the city should change its form of government to a one that’s rare in Alabama but most common across the country.

Proponents say the change to a council-manager format will allow Alabama’s 10th-largest city to function more efficiently while opponents question the accountability and the changing structure of representation.

Related: Should Madison change its governing format when life is already good?

Related: Madison moves toward vote on proposed change to governing format

Voters will decide whether to make the mayor part of a seven-member city council and hire a city manager to run the day-to-day business of the city. If voters approve that change, the mayor and council will continue in their roles of setting the vision for Madison. The change will also include reducing the city council from seven districts to six through redistricting and the mayor being elected at-large to represent the city as a whole.

According to a 2019 study by the International City/County Management Association, council-manager governments make up 40 percent of local governments that represent at least 2,500 people. The study found that the mayor-councils style makes up 38 percent of governing formats.

Madison’s current mayor, Paul Finley, supports the change, as do councilwoman Maura Wroblewski and former councilmen Marc Jacobson and Mike Potter.

Randy Kelley, chair of the Alabama Democratic Party, and Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama NAACP have spoken against the change. The NAACP has announced it will provide rides to the polls.

In a sort of financial scoreboard, Don’t Mess With Madison, a political action committee formed in opposition of the change, has outspent the PAC pushing the change, Madison Forward. Don’t Mess With Madison has spent $7,232.53 in 2023 through May 1, according to campaign finance reports. Madison Forward has spent $5,357.19.

On the flip side, Madison Forward had $3,385 in cash on hand as of May 1 while Don’t Mess With Madison had $2,534.50.

The path to Tuesday’s referendum began in 2021 when Finley appointed a Governance Transition Committee — a group that came back with unanimous support for a government format change to council-manager. Madison Forward then led an effort to collect signatures on a petition, the final step needed to call for a referendum. In February, the probate judges in Madison and Limestone counties — the two counties that include parts of the city — certified the petitions.

To make her case for why the referendum should be approved, Terri Johnson of Madison Forward and a former Madison City Schools board president, recounted a recent conversation she said she had with Sam Gaston, the city manager in Mountain Brook, to distinguish between the roles of city manager and mayor. The Birmingham suburb is one of 14 cities in Alabama that have a council-manager format, according to Madison Forward.

“Sam, what do you do every day?” Johnson recalled asking. “And he said, ‘I do the nitty gritty stuff. I make sure that if there’s some flooding in a subdivision, I get the engineer out there, I get public works out there. I take care of residents’ complaints about what’s affecting their backyard. I’m not making decisions on whether we allow an apartment complex to come into Madison. I’m just making sure if it comes in, that it meets all the regulations and guidelines for the zoning and all that kind of stuff.’”

Under the current format, those tasks fall under the jurisdiction of the elected mayor — who delegates to city employees to handle those nitty gritty details. Opponents say that if the city manager is not effective, voters in Madison have no recourse as the city manager would remain in place even as elected leaders change. Only a majority of the city council could remove the city manager.

“Modest and low-income areas and minorities are going to be impacted most adversely by eliminating one council district by installing zero accountability council-city manager as a form of government and by giving unchecked power to an unelected city manager,” said Hanu Karlapalem, an opponent of the referendum and a former candidate for mayor in Madison.

“And they won’t be done with that. It will be followed with the redistricting, which is another serious problem in the making. I’m voting no on Tuesday. The whole process is riddled with the lack of transparency and trust.”

Karlapalem said a change from seven districts to six would diminish opportunities for minority representation on the council. Madison’s population is 73.6 percent White while Black people make up the majority of the minority at 14 percent, according to the U.S. Census.

The seven council seats would continue to be elected by voters with the only change that one of the districts would be eliminated in favor of a city-wide district.

The city of Madison has a page on its website that provides information about the referendum.

Read more:

Guest opinion: Vote “no” on Tuesday in Madison

Madison councilor: Why I support the city manager-mayor-council form of government