I sent the following e-mail to the Commissioners on 1/6/17.
Commissioners,
Some of you know the history of the current Charter provisions, and some of you may not. In consideration of item 13.c in the upcoming Agenda, that history may bear some recalling.
Until 2005, the Village's functions were overseen by its Commissioners. These people were, municipal management-wise, lay people. Sometimes, they did a better job than at other times, but none of them were experts in the tasks at hand.
In 2005, the then Charter Review Committee concluded that the Village should have professional management, and it forwarded that consensus to the then Commission. That Commission agreed (I'm not sure if it was unanimous), and it further submitted the concept to the Village residents at large, as such a change was a Charter change, and could not be ratified without a referendum. The concept of changing from lay management to professional management was adopted by the Village residents voting that year. So three groups of people-- the Charter Review Committee, the Commission, and the residents at large-- all agreed that professional management would be better than lay management. And to demonstrate their commitment to this change, the then Commissioners also agreed to decrease their stipends from the Village. There was nothing uncertain or tentative about this repeatedly confirmed change.
We have had three professional managers before the current one. The first one was terrible, did nothing for us, and was a desperation choice, since we did not know how to choose a manager. The second manager did substantial and very important things for the Village. Her tenure with us ended for two reasons. One was that the then Commission, the majority of which had no agenda, no direction, and no relevant experience, did the only thing they could have done: they rode the manager, and refused every attempt she made to help them function. The other reason she left was that in the midst of this, the manager, who had already begun "looking," got a very advantageous offer from another municipality. The third manager also did some very good things for the Village-- she will long be remembered for the successes she oversaw-- but her personality-based issues got in the way, and she made a couple of very bad mistakes. She resigned under heavy criticism, some of which was scapegoating.
We now have a new manager. Three of you had no role in choosing her, although you very much could have. I, for one, made a public offer that anyone who was considering running for Commission, which each of you was then, could contact me early in the process, and I would have gone out of my way to include you and take into consideration your views. None of the three of you accepted my offer. One of you did contact me very late in the process-- when it was too late-- to tell me that the manager we finally did hire was, in this person's opinion, a poor choice, and that the best choice would have been someone who had already been eliminated.
You are now, as suggested by item 13.c, considering undermining the prerogatives of the manager, and imposing yourselves as arbiters of the manager's choices. This kind of suggestion goes in the opposite direction of what a past Charter Review Committee, and a past Commission, and a consensus of your neighbors, wanted. You may want to give that very careful reconsideration, before you go against everyone.
And part of your expressed theory is that some subsequent Charter Review Committee (a Charter Re-Review Committee) made a recommendation to the then Commission, which was the immediate preceding Commission, in 2015. If you will examine that Charter Re-Review Committee's recommendation (included in the backup), it was that no change in the Charter was recommended. So you're going against two Charter Review Committees, two Commissions, and the consensus of your neighbors. I don't know if it's your math that's funky, or your philosophizing.
We have a system. It works. It doesn't please everyone, any more than anything pleases everyone. None of you is expert in municipal management, and you frankly have no business imposing yourselves on the manager or the process and structure that have been created. And even if each of you happened to be retired, or even active, municipal managers in other municipalities, what you are proposing is a Charter change. It remains in effect even into the very distant future, when you are no longer Commissioners.
The Commission has a role in BP, and it's an important role. That role is not demeaning professional managers, and having them come to you like school children for your approval. Professional managers know vastly more than you do about how to manage municipalities. Don't get yourselves so confused and disoriented that you forget that.
On your agenda for the upcoming Commission meeting, you have a couple of items that reflect the impressions of some of your neighbors, and perhaps of you yourselves, that it seems as if police visibility has decreased, or that crime has increased. Telling that to the manager, who will review it with the police chief, is your job. Imposing yourselves as determiners of who is hired as police chief, or how many reserve officers the Village should have, is not your job.
You talk about saving money, and you itemize a couple of areas of possible savings. What you propose is meaningless. (Let alone that it's really not your call.) If you could save a couple thousand dollars, or a couple tens of thousands of dollars, this does nothing to solve the Village's real fiscal problems, and it does not even provide a meaningful basis upon which to try to lower taxes (also irrational, given our fiscal situation-- nice demagoguery, though).
Big picture. That's your job.
Fred
PS: I see that part of your theory as to why we could manage the manager differently than we do is that some other municipalities do it differently. Yes, I'm sure some do. And some probably don't. But if you want to be like other municipalities, how hard did you try to get the Commissions, and your neighbors, to back annexation, so we would have a commercial component, as your models do? Except, of course, Golden Beach. We can't be on the ocean, as they are, but what are you proposing to do to create for us the look, order, and value that allows Golden Beach properties to have such a high assessed value that they don't need a commercial component? Can I assume that the first thing you'll want to do is get cars off the swales, and tidily onto driveways on the property? And will you be encouraging the Code Review Committee to offer you a plan for high class landscaping on private properties, as well, of course, as in our medians?
If you're going to talk the talk, then walk the walk.
I received the following reply the next day from Jenny Johnson-Sardella
Fred,
Thank you for your email and advice.
Regards,
No other replies were received.
Hi Fred,
ReplyDeleteWhen the committee wrote the charter,m they knew it would require changes as time went on, it was not to be a static document. I know one of the writers very well and that was the consensus of the committee.
Our last manger did not see our needs the same as the commission and the residents. With the commission hiring some dept. heads directly and having them also report to them, they will be able to exercise more control. This is not the case now and caused some of the problems we are now facing.
With the new changes it does become the job of the commission as it well should be.
My opinion is that the commission should look at things very long term, professional mangers that we have had and I think most tend to look much more short term, ie 3-5 years.
With the last election, the residents spoke, they were unhappy with the way things were being run. If the system does not work change it, not completely, but incremental revisions.
Harvey,
DeleteSome excellent points, as usual. It's quite true that any document-- the US Constitution, or the VBP Charter-- might require changes over time. So, two years ago, we sat another Charter Review Committee. As it happens, one of our new Commissioners was on that Committee. As the backup to the Agenda item makes clear, that Committee, the one that you rightly say was charged with taking another look ten years later, decided that no changes needed to be made. I do not know if the Committee member who is now a Commissioner favored leaving the Charter unchanged. I do know that that Committee member/Commissioner is not the sponsor of item 13.c. So do we have one Commissioner who is going against two Charter Review Committees, two Commissions, her neighbors at large, and three of her current colleagues (two who were on the immediate past Commission that agreed not to change the Charter, and one who was on the Committee that also didn't want to change it)?
No manager, and no Commissioner, and no President, Senator, or Congressperson, will see to needs as all constituents want. Because there's no such thing as what all constituents want. It is the job of the Commission to keep the manager informed of what seems most saliently wanted, and to try either to get the manager to comply, or to come to understand what's wrong with the desire. If part of your point is that recent Commissioners found it very difficult to manage a manager, how much more difficult would it be for Commissioners to manage, or choose, department heads, a task for which Commissioners are not trained or qualified? No, Harvey, that is not what the Charter provides, and I can't see how it's anything but a bad idea.
With what new changes does this become the job of the Commission? The proposed changes with which almost no one agrees? That's circular reasoning, isn't it?
I agree with you that Commissions should look long term, but our experience is that they tend not to. They tend to look short term. They're concerned either with avoiding the displeasure of their neighbors-- like if they want to do something different, or spend money-- or with getting re-elected. And they're still lay people, when it comes to municipal management. In that way, they don't know what they're doing. Your neighbors got very angry at the immediate past Commission for looking long term, and actually making changes to strengthen the neighborhood, and improving it. No, Harvey, those are not the people who can be relied upon to look long term. At least not without getting themselves unelected. It is the professional manager who has the vision, the experience, and the perspective to look long term.
I will remind you, or tell you, that of the three finalists for Manager in the last hiring, one was about 57 and wanted working with us to be his "last job," one was about 50 and wanted long term employment with us, and the other was younger and told me he wanted to work for us for "3-4 years" and move on. I thought what you thought: that we should want someone who would making a longer term commitment, so I ruled out the short term guy.
Constituents and voters always speak, and there are always some who are unhappy. That's not a sign of failure. But this time, as in the general US election, they decided to go in a different kind of direction. So we'll see what results. I still say we should be very wary of major changes (a Charter change no one wants, and that gives inappropriate authority to untrained people, is a major change) coming from people who have no relevant experience or knowledge with the Village (Jenny has some), early in their tenures. The fact that the proposal is to submit this for referendum before any of the residents at large get to understand it, and in the setting with the fewest voters, makes the proposal even more half-cocked.
Fred
Harvey,
DeleteI'm going to introduce a delicate issue. And because it might matter, I'm going to name names. Everything, except one fact, I'm going to say is public record.
The Commissioner who proposed item 13.c is Tracy Truppman. It is Tracy who is suggesting that the Commission should co-opt some of the authority given by our Charter to the Manager.
You might or might not know that Tracy applied for the Manager position last year. She is not remotely qualified to be a municipal manager, and certainly not qualified according to the standards we openly demanded, and she was dropped from consideration at the first round.
What is not public, because Tracy called me (and perhaps others of the then Commissioners), instead of communicating by public e-mail, is that she told me she thought hiring Sharon was a very bad idea. She preferred someone who had been eliminated at an early round of consideration.
The question is, is it essentially just a coincidence that Tracy is now, seemingly on her own, proposing to make herself (as a Commissioner) a higher authority when it comes to hiring than is the Manager, or is she still steaming and resentful that Sharon was hired over her, or the person she said she preferred, and wants some of the authority that was denied her, because she was not qualified and does not deserve this particular kind of authority?
Perhaps anyone's guess is as good as anyone else's.
Fred
It's interesting that two cities that I always consider for comparison when looking at codes and how they operate are omitted from the list; Miami Shores and EL Portal. These are our two sister cities both of these cities have one difference from our Charter with respect to hires by the Manager; they include the Clerk as a position to be either ratified or selected by the Commission. I must imagine that the Charter Review Committee also looked at these two cities and decided to leave our Charter as it is with respect to this issue.
ReplyDeleteFurther, it's a bit premature to make an attempt to rush through changes to the Charter to be placed on the Ballot after being in office for 1 month and after our new Manager was just hired.
I will repeat Doc's mantra let the Manager Manage.
Fred,
ReplyDeleteThe new commission is not going against 2 code review boards. Time changes and the system did not work. This question never came up because everyone thought there was more commission oversight as to how some departments were being run.
With David's position being available, we have a unique opportunity. We can add this possible change to the election at no additional cost to be decided by all the residents. Normally this would have to wait 2 years until the next election.
If this is a change the residents want, let it be so.
Harvey,
DeleteThis proposal is indeed going against two Charter Review Committees. All you're saying is that the last one was so two years ago. How often to do we need Charter Review Committees? Every month? And I would submit to you that you do not change the Charter every time residents get frustrated about something. If the fault was the immediate past Manager, she is no longer here. If it was the immediate past Commission, you have changed it. Charter changes should be very infrequent, and very carefully considered. They should not be slid into another election, because it's so convenient, and because we can save money. It's the kind of thing that is worth a series of "workshops," and can, and should, wait for the next general election. We need to be sure the implications are very well understood and anticipated.
It's not a change "the residents" want. Thus far, it's a change two of them want (I'm assuming you want it, so you and Tracy are the two.) And you should be very concerned about this being sprung so quickly, as Chuck points out, and proposed when few are watching. Come on, Harvey.
Fred