(Ed. note: be careful when you update your document files! You might find old papers begging to be published. Here’s one of Yanni’s papers from her Kalamazoo history series of 2004. She wrote it on 3/12/04. We had to go to the local history room of the Kalamazoo Public Library in order to research for this one. I ended up taking most of the notes, having the most experience of the two of us. Our current mayor has changed, as have some of the commissioners, but this is still an informative paper).

Kalamazoo City Government

By: Ayanna A. Gray

All cities need a government, so there will be order in places. For example, there are security systems at stores, so people won’t shoplift, and police officers , so that people who commit crimes will go to jail. These things don’t happen all by themselves. They need a government to keep things running smoothly. A government is very important to cities, and the nation. In this report, I will talk about Kalamazoo’s government, and how it works today.

In the Kalamazoo government, the bodies that govern the city are the City Commission, and the City Manager.

The things that the local city government are supposed to do:

1. stop natural problems, like forest fires, and floods.
2. Able to raise enough money in a fair way.
3. Have flexible boundaries.
4. Organize social parties.
5. Keep the economy high.
6. Able to respond to the citizens.
7. Having political capability.

In the city commission, the citizens elect 7 city commissioners every odd- numbered year.

Here are the people on the current city commission: Robert B. Jones, Hannah McKinney, Sean McCann, Bobby Hopewell, Don Cooney, Mary Balkema, and David Juarez.

The city commission adopts the city cause, decides on city politics, and standards, authorizes annual budget assignments, decides on what city taxes collected, approves contracts, and agreements, and finally, represents the city and it’s citizens.

The mayor, the Vice mayor, and 5 of the commissioners vote for: the city assessor, the city attorney, the city clerk, and the internal auditor. The mayor and the Vice mayor get the highest 2 votes. Our current Mayor, Robert B. Jones, has been the mayor since 1998.

The City Manager is the chief managing officer of the city, and is supposed to defend all the laws and anything relating to the city, and is also responsible for the city’s annual budget.

When Kalamazoo became a city in 1884, it had something called “The Mayor System”, when they only had mayors. The first mayor of Kalamazoo was Allen Potter.
Over the next 33 years, we have had a lot of different kinds of people as mayors. We have had:
6 attorneys,
4 industrialists,
2 financiers,
2 merchants,
1 businessman
1 insurance agency owner,
1 contractor, and
1 postmaster.

In 1917, The Chamber of Commerce Committee on local reform was headed by W. E. Upjohn won a City Manager Charter. This resulted in the first Kalamazoo City Commission. The people in the first city commission were William Shakespeare jr., Albert J Todd, W.E Upjohn, Alfred Connable, Dr. Paul, T. Butler, MD Traxton Talbot, and George E. Martin. The city managers were the Gilmore Brothers.

Mayors of Kalamazoo, from 1884-2004:

Allen Potter,1884
Walter R. Taylor-1905
Frank E. McAllister-1930
Paul H. Todd-1937
Glenn S. Allen, Jr.-1951-59
R. L. Hightower-1967
Robert B. Jones-2004-

What I learned from writing this report was that the government makes things run smoothly, and that it is not boring.