City, Town, and Village Council Member
The Basics
Of all the elected officials you might vote for, few play a bigger role in your daily life than your representatives in your city, town, or village government. Pretty much every municipality has a group of elected officials, which is usually called a Council; the elected officials are usually called Council Members, but some places call them Aldermen, Supervisors, or something else.
Council members are your voice in local government. They make decisions on housing and homelessness, public transit, policing, local taxes, social services, public schools, parks, libraries, basic services like trash pickup and plowing the roads after snowstorms, and more. Some of their most important responsibilities are:
- Writing and voting on your city, town, or village’s laws (these local laws are sometimes called ordinances)
- Deciding on and passing your city, town, or village’s budget, which lays out how the government spends its money
- Raising or lowering local taxes
- Making land use, housing, and zoning decisions
- In some areas, the Council has oversight powers over the police department or other parts of local government
This means they can monitor the agency’s actions, investigate, and take action if there’s proof of corruption or serious misconduct
In a lot of towns, villages, and smaller cities, the Mayor is also a Council member, instead of being elected separately as an executive. This is called a weak-mayor system. See our explainer on Mayors for more information.
Many municipalities, especially ones that have a weak-mayor system, also have a Council-Manager form of government: the Council makes laws and decides policies, and hires a City Manager to execute those laws and policies. The City Manager is like a chief executive of the municipality, and runs the daily operations of local government. They’re a nonpartisan official, and they’re usually hired through a normal job-search process. The Council can also decide, usually through a majority vote, to fire the Manager if needed. If your municipality has a Manager, choosing who will serve in this role is one of the most important responsibilities a Council member has.
Municipalities elect their Council members in a lot of different ways. Some governments divide the city, town, or village into districts, and the people who live in each district will elect one member to represent them. Other governments use an at-large system, which means all the residents vote for all the members – for example, if a town council has 5 members, everyone can vote for up to 5 candidates and the top 5 vote-getters are the winners of the election. Some governments use a mixed system, where some members are elected by district and others are elected at-large.
How do I find out how it works in my municipality?
As of 2019, the US had almost 20,000 cities, towns, and villages! So as much as we’d love to, we can’t list the specifics of them all here. If you’re curious about how your local government works, start by finding your city, village, or town’s official website – if they have one, it will probably have at least a basic breakdown of who does what. If you have a local newspaper, their coverage might also be a good source of information. If you live in a very small-population area and there isn’t any online information, you still have options: visit your local library, or get in touch with your local Board of Elections or Voter Registrar and ask if they have any information to share with you.
How can I make my voice heard?
If you want to make some change, your own neighborhood is a great place to start. Find out how to influence your Council members by checking out our guide to advocating at City Hall. If your municipality has an Citizens’ Review Board for the police department, getting involved with the Board is another great way to have an impact on policing issues.
Sources: Statista; New York City Government; Duluth City Government; International City/County Management Association
What have Council members done?
The actions of your local Council members influence so many aspects of your daily life. Here are just a few that have made a big impact:
- Bossier City Council
Louisiana
Called a special election asking voters whether to limit Council members and the Mayor to a three-term limit, which would also apply to officials currently in office; residents voted strongly in favor of the term limits in May of 2025 - Del Pepper
Virginia
Proposed and launched Alexandria’s Eco-City Charter, a program to implement sustainability practices throughout city government - Katherine Gilmore Richardson
Pennsylvania
Passed a bill in the Philadelphia City Council requiring public hearings before all labor contracts were approved, including police contracts, arguing that citizen participation would increase transparency and accountability for the police department
-
In October of 2025, Durham City Council in North Carolina passed major tenant protection rules aimed at cracking down on unsafe housing. The new ordinance banned landlords from collecting rent from tenants living in housing considered “imminently dangerous to health or safety,” with the goal of holding landlords accountable for necessary repairs. Under the new rules, tenants can request that city code inspectors inspect their homes, and if the inspectors find bad enough conditions (things like unsafe wiring, lack of water or sanitary facilities, pest infestations, broken locks, or badly damaged roofs), landlords have 72 hours to fix them; after that, collecting rent is illegal until repairs are made. It was passed unanimously – and it all began at a local high school.
Milo Graber, a senior at Riverside High School, cofounded the school’s Affordable Housing Club. The club’s members saw how the city’s housing crisis was affecting kids, and wanted to do something about it. So they did some research, and found that other cities in North Carolina already had safe-housing rules and other tenant protections. They wanted the same for Durham, and with that goal set, they spent the next year making their case. They wrote and released a report on how Charlotte’s ordinances worked. They went to eviction court, watched hearings and interviewed attorneys. They reached out to local advocacy groups to get them on board, and support steadily grew.
Then, they found an ally on the City Council in Chelsea Cook, a law professor and former eviction attorney – she introduced the ordinance in August of 2025, and as the hearing got closer, the club published an op-ed in support of the ordinance in a local paper. By the time the hearing rolled around, it was clear the ordinance was popular. City Hall was packed, and several Durham residents gave public comment in support. Over 2.5 hours of testimony and discussion, Council members considered the ordinance, and when all 7 members voted ‘yes,’ applause broke out. Affordable Housing Club cofounder Nico Jordan wrote that the experience “showed me how student advocacy can really help cause positive change…our advocacy doesn’t have to be symbolic.”
Sources: North Carolina Justice Center; The Pirates’ Hook (Riverside High School’s student newspaper); IndyWeek; Duke Chronicle; CBS 17 News
-
In 2023, the Lafayette City Council met to consider what to do with the site of an old elementary school. The building, formerly J. Wallace James Elementary School, had closed in 2000 after a federal desegregation order and had sat empty for over 20 years. Developers were on board to build a mental health facility on the site, but to move forward the property first had to be rezoned for commercial use – and this required a majority vote on the Council.
Supporters and opponents gave their views on the proposed project. Supporters said that there was a clear need in the neighborhood for the services the facility would provide. Opponents worried it would add to the neighborhood’s existing problems. One resident said that in the past, hospitals have dropped off patients who had nowhere else to go at the nearby homeless services center, and service providers had criticized this practice. Opponents worried that patients with nowhere to go after treatment would end up “stranded.” While opponents didn’t agree on what they would prefer the site to become, they knew they didn’t want a mental health facility there.
Because the project was still in the early planning stages, many questions, like how discharges would be handled, were not yet answered. The need for rezoning brought the project to the community’s attention earlier than the developers expected, and those unanswered questions led to the Council’s decision to reject, by a vote of 3-2, the proposed rezoning. Development can be a very contentious issue in many neighborhoods, and Council members are responsible for balancing multiple perspectives – the need for services, the preferences of neighborhood residents, financial considerations, and more – when making these decisions.
Sources: The Current Lafayette; KADN News 15