FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Municipal employees have until July 2, 5 p.m., to apply for the position of city administrator that has become the latest flash point in a power struggle between Mayor Tim Kant and the City Council.

The position is only open to city employees at this time.

“I hope that there is a qualified candidate that will put their application forward,” Council President Debbie Quinn said this week. “I’m hoping that we will hire that person at (the next council) meeting.”

The political battle over how the city is to be run, and by whom, began when the city shifted to a so-called “strong council-weak mayor” system in 2004 but took on new energy with last year’s election of two new council members and a new council president.

Since that time, the council has passed several ordinances that shifted power from the mayor to the council, including the authority to hire and fire most managerial employees.

But the council’s creation in March of the city administration position upped the ante in this political match.

And last Monday, tempers flared after the council removed language from the ordinance that put the city administrator “under the direction of the mayor.”

Then Monday, Kant vetoed that council action, which has the effect of returning those five words to the City Code section that describes the purpose and duties of the position.

“We do not need a city administrator because the duties the council is giving him will make him a virtual mayor, and I can do the job of mayor and chief executive officer without any administrator to help me, as I have for over eight years,” Kant wrote Monday in his veto of the council’s action that removed that language from the city administrator ordinance.

The deletion of that language passed unanimously last Monday, but Councilman Mike Ford claimed later he had been misled about the reason for the language change, stating that removing those words may have done more than eliminate “mere verbiage” as Councilman Lonnie Mixon stated. (Mixon made the motion to amend the ordinance.)

But Mixon did state during the June 22 meeting that the city administrator would be supervised by the mayor, even without that language, because a state statute required it.

Councilman Rick Kingrea, however, suggested that the new city administrator might work independently of the mayor’s supervision, and that helped fuel the controversy over why the language was deleted, which led to Monday’s veto.

The council could override Kant’s veto with a 4-1 vote at its next meeting on July 13.

During the past year, both of the mayor’s two vetoes have been overturned by the council, but he might have better luck this time.

“I believe that Councilman Ford will change his vote on reconsideration and vote against the ordinance,” Kant’s veto stated. “Perhaps Councilman Mixon will do likewise if he stands by his statement that he made at the meeting. After all, if the law already requires the city administrator to work under the mayor’s direction (as said), then why not leave the words in the ordinance so that it will conform to the law? Maybe even others will also change their vote because, if they were satisfied with their original ordinance which the city administrator will work under the mayor’s direction, then they still should be satisfied with this, unless they have ulterior motives.”

Since last Monday’s council meeting, both Quinn and Mixon said they believe the city administrator will be supervised by the mayor, but Kingrea said again that the new employee might not answer to the mayor all the time.

Kingrea said this week that he thinks “the city administrator acts independently of the mayor and would not necessarily fall under his supervision,” except where the ordinance does not set out the job’s duties. He said, where those duties are set out, as they are in detail in the ordinance, the employee would not answer to the mayor regarding those responsibilities.

Kingrea pointed to an article written by the Alabama League of Municipalities that described two ways a city could create a “city manager” that would have autonomy from the mayor, and a third approach of creating a “city administrator” that would be supervised by the mayor.

“As noted in this article, the League does not recommend hiring a manager pursuant to the Code provisions cited below,” wrote Ken Smith, deputy director and general counsel of the ALM, in a June 15 e-mail to the Fairhope city clerk and copied to the mayor and council, referring to Sections 11-43-20 to 11-43-22 in the Ala. Code. “Most municipalities do not hire managers or administrators pursuant to these provisions. Instead, they hire a manager or administrator who will essentially assist the mayor perform his or her jobs. If the council wishes to hire a manager and remove the mayor’s power, in our opinion, they should adopt a council/manager form of government, letting the citizens vote to alter the city’s form of government. Otherwise, the appointment of the manager can simply cause more confusion.”

Smith said he was only aware of one city where the council might have created an autonomous manager position without changing the form of government through a vote of the citizens.

But that state statute for creating a city manager without a change of government does exist, even though the ALM doesn’t recommend using it.

However, that is not the ordinance cited in the creation of the Fairhope city administrator job and the duties, which are set out in the city manager ordinance, are different from those described for the Fairhope position.

“The city administrator will answer to the mayor on day-to-day duties,” Quinn said this week.  “With the personnel and budgetary issues the city has had, the council feels compelled to hire someone with knowledge and expertise in these fields. We believe that it will be the beginning of better dialogue, professional management of our employees and more oversight of our budgetary responsibilities.”

Although the application period for the job ends tomorrow, even the posting of the job announcement involved a struggle between the mayor and council.

The mayor initially refused to have the job posted, defying the council’s instructions in a dramatic declaration during the June 8 meeting in which he seemed to draw a line in the sand over who should be exercising those powers of city government. But within a week he had relented, and the job announcement was posted.

“The administrator, while given a great deal of discretion in the performance of his or her duties, is subject to the daily supervision of the chief executive officer of the municipality,” the 1996 article in the ALM newsletter states. “This person’s job is not to usurp the mayor’s powers, but to enhance them. The administrator can also help depoliticize city or town hall. The mayor and council are sometimes forced to resolve highly polarizing political conflicts. While the administrator must keep his or her employer happy to stay employed, he or she can help resolve opposing political desires by providing an objective source to whom the mayor and council can look to for advice.”

The announcement lists a pay range or starting rate at $89,500 to $110,000 and a job description that details the range of duties by which the employee will “direct and manage the operations of the city.”

The city administrator will earn more than the mayor’s $60,000 annual salary, but so do most other department heads and senior staff.

The city of Gulf Shores has a city administrator on its staff, as do Huntsville and Opelika.

In Huntsville, the city administrator “assists the mayor in overseeing the day-to-day business of the city,” according to its Web site.

Gulf Shores hired a new city administrator last year, and the job announcement stated the employee was “responsible to the mayor and council.”

“With a general fund budget of $42.4 million, a capital budget of $6 million and 256 full-time city employees, Gulf Shores functions like a city of 20,000,” the job announcement stated.

Fairhope has a budget of more than $50 million, more than 300 full-time employees, and a population estimated at 16,000.

“At some point in time as you grow, you’re going to have to change,” said Mixon, as one of the main reasons for hiring a city administrator in Fairhope. “The mayor will be over the city administrator because that’s what state law says.”