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You can' t take the politics out of local government regard- less of what sort of apparatus you set up. Then the question is , the idea then`.shifts to identifying that form of organization that most readily identifies where the power and responsibility is for administrative discretion or for decision making. There are a varietyof different forms that can be put together . One way is to have the focus of power focussed on the mayor , a strong-mayor system, giving extensive appointive powers , etcetera. There are advantages and disadvantages to each. In one paragraph here, I argued for . . . for weaken- ing some of the mayor ' s powers and transferring some of those powers to the Council. There are advantages and disadvantages to doing that. The primary benefit I would see to the County in doing that is that it would facilitate the appointments--at the very highest levels-- of professional. . .professionally trained administrators to run the major departments in the County. That ' s the primary advantage that I see. In other words , the. . . BETHEA: How is that an advantage to run it? SMITH: That advantage is derived by removing from the mayor , and therefore weakening the strong-mayor system, to this extent: removing from the mayor powers to directly appoint the heads of administrative agencies . The major concern. . . BETHEA: That ' s the part that ' s subject to approval of the Council? SMITH: It would be subject to the approval of the Council. . .approval of the Council. There are a variety of different ways this can be done, incidentally. And you could still achieve part of the same result without directly taking those powers away from the mayor . One thing you could do, for example, would be to require minimum qualifications within the County Charter for the major County departments . That would be a way to further professionalize the administration and the County bureaucracy. And that might be the better alternative to taking those powers directly away from the mayor . But the alternative that I speak of. . .or I spoke of in here would be to take those powers away from the mayor and either give them to a managing director who would be professionally recruited by. . .either by the Council or the mayor , and then have the managing director make those appointments , subject to the approval of the Council and/or the mayor . The bottom line in any of these schemes then is to professionalize. . . further professionalize the bureaucracy and the administration candidate program. One additional point which I didn ' t mention in here. 166