I think we should say it's official. One of our Commissioners has a distinct thing for the Village Manager. It appears he's had it from the beginning. Could it have been love at first sight? Could have.
The Commissioner had an initial reaction much different from that of anyone else who saw and heard the prospective Manager. Everyone else was openly enthralled. Of the several candidates for new Manager, the one we chose was at the top of everyone's list. Everyone talked about it. Well, almost everyone. Not our hero. He didn't like her. There was some question as to whether he had someone else in mind, but he definitely did not get bitten by the bug that bit everyone else. Or so it seemed. Have you seen a toddler or pretoddler who doesn't want to eat his Gerber's pureed broccoli? He purses his lips, turns away, and shakes his head "NO!" That's what we're talking about. One of our boy's colleagues had to ask him to vote for her anyway, after his initial, and lone, no vote, so we could welcome the new Manager unanimously. As a courtesy to her. Yeah, OK, he grudgingly complied. And from those auspicious beginnings, it's been steeply downhill.
Our new Manager is a regular adult. She's not into playing games, she doesn't set booby traps for people she doesn't like, and she doesn't wear pigtails a mischievous lad could pull. So our boy seems out of place in dealing with her as if she were a coveted schoolgirl. Is our new Manager smart, accomplished, business-like, and "popular" among the residents, her coworkers, and the rest of the Commission? Well, in fact, yes, she is. And those may be reasons for some to feel a bit of envy for her talents. But adults appreciate that in her. They don't try to punish her for it. If a resident or a Commissioner comes to feel, or realize, that other residents like the Manager more than they like the resident or Commissioner, the resident/Commissioner learns to smile about it. Gross jealousy, and a campaign to undermine, are way out of line. No adult would carry on that way.
So our lad has devoted himself to precisely that negative approach. He has argued with and attempted to obstruct every move the Manager makes. He criticizes absolutely everything. Last year, there was a flap about our Finance Director at the time. For reasons that have never been revealed, a reporter from a local tabloid contacted only our boy, among five Commissioners, to ask what he knew about the Finance Director, and how he reacted to the flap. And did our boy register a complaint? Of course. But the complaint was not about the then Finance Director. It was about the Manager, on whom he has this unflinching fixation.
Also last year, the Manager was due to be evaluated, by the Commission and by the whole neighborhood. Resident after resident came to the podium to compliment the Manager and express appreciation for her, and in frankly glowing terms. Anyone was welcome to respond in any way at all, and no one had anything but good to say. Three Commissioners provided their own feedback, some informally, and some in a more formal "report" style. All were much more than satisfied. They, too, were glowing. One Commissioner, who appears to have abandoned his post in a relatively pervasive way, never provided the evaluation it was his responsibility to do. Our lad? Not so fast. He had plenty to point out. And it was nothing but criticism. He had insights no one else could see. He gave very, very poor marks. Either he's an insightful and perspicacious genius, seeing and knowing far beyond what the rest of us do, or he's grossly and pathetically out of step.
Last week, at the Commission meeting, he managed to find some way to accuse the Manager of failure of leadership. If there's one area in which the Manager excels above all others, it's leadership. She is pro-active, she rallies and unifies all other Village employees, for some of whom she provides considerable supervision, she makes bold decisions, and she gets things done. But no, our lad saw what no one else could see: she is a failed "leader."
And our Commissioner friend does not keep these valuable insights to himself. I have spoken directly to two residents, and heard about another, who know how inept and tyrannical the Manager is, because our boy tells them. None of these residents come to meetings. They just rely on our lad to tell them what's really going on.
Now as personal as our lad's antipathy seems to be, I do consider the possibility that his sabotage and muck-raking might be more general. For example, in his several years on the Commission, spanning the tenures of two Managers and two significantly different Commissions, he has never voted in favor of approving a budget. He has voted against every one of them. His opposition used to be 1-4, but now that he's found a little playmate, it's 2-3. He never says he's refusing budgets categorically, as if he denied the process of presenting budgets. He always claims it's about something faulty in the budgets. They're never perfect enough. They're apparently good enough for everyone else, and they provide the Village with a framework for its fiscal functioning, but our boy sees things that don't completely please him. So he votes against the budgets. Invariably. I was giving my son an analogy about exactly this kind of logical error. The analogy went like this: suppose you need a car. You simply must have one. So you begin shopping for one. You research many cars, from many companies, and you test drive them all. At the end of your explorations, you summarize, thanks to the careful and comprehensive notes you made, that each car is imperfect, and you don't buy any of them. If you wind up feeling that you have "succeeded," in avoiding coming to own an imperfect car, you need to take a step back and realize that in fact, you "failed." Your need was to get a car, and you didn't get one.
In the present case, we have a Village Manager, whether our lad wanted her or not, she's terrific, whether he likes her or not, and we have provided for ourselves yearly budget after yearly budget, whether our boy approves of them or finds them flawed. So his failures, which he twists in his mind to be missed successes, do not become our failures. This is good. It's just too bad about the drag. To carry the car analogy one step further, you can drive a car with the emergency brake on, but it's difficult, it's an unpleasant ride, and it uses way too much gas.
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