This Voting Smart segment features an interview with political scientist, Michael Hoover. He offers an assessment and overview on the State of Municipal Leadership.
As residents and taxpayers, if you live in a city, you’ll find its government and, by extension, its elected official have a sustained impact on your life–considerably more than our legislature or congress. Knowing this is oft-times exacerbated because the small-population cities, like in Seminole County, by comparison to their much larger sister cities to the south – like Orlando and Winter Park – often and by circumstance function beyond the focus of mainstream media – the traditional media assets always in play in larger cities. Thus, the uninformed small-city voter may find it more difficult to understand the leadership and the issues at play….particularly during an election season
So, it seems – now, days away from the November 3rd election, the State of our Elected Municipal Leadership is worthy of assessment and examination.
Extended Interview
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Dr. Michael Hoover and Stephen McKenney Steck
Extended interview (42:21)
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To help us that understanding, we turn to an academic who is a lifelong native of Central Florida and a political scientist.
For most of the past 30 years, Dr. Michael Hoover has held the position of a full professor of Political Science at Seminole State College. He graduated from Evans High School in Orlando and gained his undergrad degree from the University of Florida… his Masters degree in political science at the University of Central Florida… and his Ph.D. in the same subject at the Union Institute in Cincinnati.
In this interview, we ask Professor Hoover to respond to a range of issues about municipal leadership. Those issues included how leadership is affected by different forms of city government, whether a city-held office is a stepping stone to higher office, a roster of major issues over which elected leaders have impact on a resident’s daily life, whether a local city council member or mayor has any greater or less impact on the daily life of residents than a legislator or member of congress, how the length of a city official’s term in office may affect the quality of leadership and the factors or measures a city resident might overlay on to a city government to gauge the quality of its elected municipal leadership.
