Institutions
The nature of both county and municipal government varies not only between states, but also between different counties and municipalities within them. Local voters are generally free to choose the basic framework of government from a selection established by state law.
In most cases both counties and municipalities have a governing council, governing in conjunction with a mayor or president. Alternatively, the institution may be of the council-manager government form, run by a city manager under direction of the city council. In the past the municipal commission was also common.
The ICMA has classified local governments into five common forms: mayor-council, council-manager, commission, town meeting, and representative town meeting.
In addition to elections for a council or mayor, elections are often also held for positions such as local judges, the sheriff (head of the county's police department), and other offices (See City Councils Below)
Read more about this topic: Local Government In The United States
Famous quotes containing the word institutions:
“You may melt your metals and cast them into the most beautiful moulds you can; they will never excite me like the forms which this molten earth flows out into. And not only it, but the institutions upon it are plastic like clay in the hands of the potter.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Our institutions have a potent digestion, and may in time convert and assimilate to good all elements thrown in, however originally alien.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“So far as laws and institutions avail, men should have equality of opportunity for happiness; that is, of education, wealth, power. These make happiness secure. An equal diffusion of happiness so far as laws and institutions avail.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)