Warren Street in Hudson.

Should the city of Hudson strip the mayor of power, hire a city manager and eliminate more than half of its Common Council positions?

That's the proposal offered by a group of former and current city officials, who say a new structure for city government would reduce dysfunction. "We believe this 18th-century management model is outdated, ill-suited and insufficient to run 21st-century Hudson," the group, Hudson Charter Change, wrote on its new website.

The proposal is worth considering, and, yes, there are other New York cities, including Newburgh and Poughkeepsie, where the city manager form of government seems to work. But there would be significant drawbacks.

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For one, the change would mean less pure........

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