The City of Marina is governed at the local level by a mayor and a city council. City council members and mayor are elected to serve a term of four years, and tenure of city council members is staggered so that two members are up for election every two years, with elections for these offices being held in November of even numbered years. Marina also has a city manager and a city attorney.

The Marina city council has regular meetings every other Tuesday at the council chambers, located at 211 Hillcrest Avenue. City council meetings often begin with a closed session at 5:30pm, followed by an open session beginning at 6:30pm. The open session portion of the meeting is open to the general public and also can be viewed on the Marina TV channel,  both during the meetings and in subsequent delayed broadcasts. In addition, video recordings of city council meetings can be viewed via the Internet.

The City of Marina Calendar provides more specific information about schedules for meetings of the City Council and other boards, commissions and committees. For more information about broadcast schedules or Internet video-on-demand, visit the website for AMP Media and look for The City of Marina.

The functions and responsibilities of the Marina city government are, no doubt, defined in various statues. However, a quicker way to get an idea of what the city government does might be to look at its organizational structure. The city website lists the following departments: City Manager, City Clerk, Police Department, Fire Department, Recreation & Cultural Services, Finance, Community Development, Building and Code Enforcement, Economic Development,  Marina Municipal Airport, Human Resources & Risk Management,  and Public Works.

All the above information was obtained from the official City of Marina website. I have simply organized it a bit differently to provide an introduction to city government for those not already in the know.