Thursday, July 23, 2020
The Adults in the Room
We had two meetings beginning late Thursday afternoon. The first was supposed to last 1/2 hour, and its purpose was to hire Paul Winkeljohn, who is our finance director, as our interim manager.
The three new amigos couldn't bring themselves to agree to pay Paul the minimum that he already said was required by his employer, and they couldn't agree to allow him to hire and fire Village employees, which is of course an important part of the manager's job.
Paul already said the stated salary was the requirement. It was foolish to try to haggle. Besides, the haggling was nonsensical. It did not take into account any actual consideration about anything. Dan Samaria thought $1000 a week would be appropriate for a "part time manager," (as if there was any such thing as a part time manager), and Will Tudor thought $1800 a week felt right to him, whatever an amount of money feeling right to Will meant. It was already established that the former interim manager made more than Paul's company required -- and the amigos had agreed to it, although they clearly had no idea what they had agreed to. Also, the numbers fantasized by the amigos were not connected to the budget...or to anything. They were just empty numbers. Although Ginny O'Halpin eventually slipped, and revealed her strategy: she still wants to hire Village clerk Roseann Prado, who appears to have no relevant skills, and who is said already to require the back-up of the police chief, (so Ginny supported any proposal Paul Winkeljohn's company would not accept). So even the person who suggested her -- Ginny O'Halpin -- knows Roseann can't do this job.
Which led to some discussion as to whether it would make more sense if the police chief became the interim manager. This would require the police chief to resign from being the police chief, so he could be the interim manager instead. He said he's not going to do it, because he has more than enough to do as the police chief, who is also trying to manage the code function, and deal with the coronavirus.
Roseann then chimed in, and she made a very interesting comment. She said she's already been doing the job of the manager, and she only complained that she's not been recognized for it. She then clarified that she was doing the job of manager both while David Hernandez was the interim manager, and while Krishan Manners was manager. This revelation was frankly a real head-scratcher. Roxy Ross then asked Roseann what were her relevant credentials, and Roseann deflected, saying she doesn't want the job of manager, but was only offering to help out temporarily.
One of the bases of Will Tudor's resistance to hiring Paul Winkeljohn, and giving him the natural and essential power to hire and fire was that the position for which Paul was applying was only interim. Will didn't "feel comfortable" (again) giving that much power to an interim manager. In fact, when the matter was brought to light, Will acknowledged that David Hernandez had hired and fired people, and now Will claims he didn't approve. This is a bit hard to believe since Will was one of the people who refused to find a permanent manager to take over for the interim David, and he never made one complaint about anything David did.
After 75 minutes of this horribly mangled and tortured, and completely nonsensical, 30 minute meeting, I had my next appointment (with someone who actually wanted something), and I had to leave the meeting. The three amigos didn't listen to Paul Winkeljohn, they seemed unable to think intelligently through any of the issues, and they outvoted Roxy Ross and Mac Kennedy. There were more children than adults in this room, and they had the run of things.
The next meeting, which promised to be as pathetic as the first one, was about the upcoming taxation rate. The proposed millage is still 9.7, as it has been for years, despite that the millage in itself has no meaning, and I have no idea who prepared this budget. It's unimaginable to me it was David Hernandez. Maybe Roseann Prado will say it was one of the managerial tasks she undertook for the various headless chickens. Or maybe the amigos simply carried over last year's budget to this year, since they have no idea how to consider a budget. And I wouldn't even try to guess how long this meeting lasted.
OMG Fred it was freaking painful. I can't remember exactly how long meeting number 2 took but millage setting meetings normally take a short time. This one got hijacked due to Dan Samaria's insistence that they lower the millage to 9.4 paying no attention to those of us that spoke and urged them to leave it alone especially since they hadn't been through the budget yet. And, that 3/10ths of a mill drop will save the average homeowner a big, whopping, life changing $90 a year! But, will cost the village approximately $25,000 per year.
ReplyDeleteThey didn't get through very much in meeting number 3. Basically just revenues, debt service and the police budget. The only shinning moment of the entire pathetic evening was finding out that code will be moving under police. Hearing chief's plans for the department, the professionalism he will bring to it, gives me some hope.
The ultimate example of penny wise and pound foolish was the 3 obstructionists refusing to meet the Finance Manager's salary request. They clearly learned NOTHING from their mistakes. This clerk struggles to do one job. I have no faith she can do two. And of course Wil blames Mac for this current situation because to do otherwise he would have to accept responsibility for watching a man drowning and doing nothing about it. Apparently he's never spoken to other city managers.....our 2nd one for example. She had not 2 but 5 tough, detail oriented bosses but yet she was the consummate professional at all times. Knew how to prioritize and juggle multiple tasks. This is the norm in city managing. Mac wasn't the problem. The 3 obstructionists putting the wrong person in the job (and with no end in sight) caused this mess.
Janey,
DeleteI didn't realize there was a third meeting. I was finished with my appointments at 9:30, and I guess I could have signed back in. Had I been that masochistic.
I have said this many times, and I will say it again: the millage on its own means nothing. The questions are what we want to accomplish, and how much money it will take to accomplish it. That second calculation determines how much we have to tax ourselves, which leads to a calculation of what the millage would have to be. But we always do this backwards, and blind. For Dan, or Noah Jacobs, to say he just wants a smaller number (neither of them, interestingly, paid tax or was a real stake-holder in the Village) is childish and meaningless. Meeting 3 should come before meeting 2, and for the first pass, the millage should always be at least 10. We can lower it at the second pass, once we hone in the budget: where and how much we want to spend, and how much it will take to accomplish the goals.
But Dan can't know this, because of "that man behind the curtain," who doesn't bother to explain, and only wants to 1) lower his own taxes, and 2) run the Village. I feel confident that it is Milt Hunter who is running the Village by controlling Dan and Ginny, neither of whom is remotely competent, and who told Ginny how to hire Roseann to "manage." We have now traded Tracy, whom we can at least blame ourselves for having elected, for Milt, who has zero accountability, takes no responsibility, and is totally rogue.
Will is in some ways the worst of the three, because I suspect he has brains enough to do better, and he doesn't even care enough to ask Milt Hunter what he should do. He just really doesn't care. And he has no idea what he's doing.
I forgot to mention, Janey, that a day or two ago, I received yet another call from...David Hernandez. I don't take his calls. But he followed up with an e-mail. It was a link to Milt's latest blog post, which lauded David for single-handedly solving the CITT problem, or the FEMA problem, or whatever Milt was going on about. I only skimmed it, because Milt is not honest, and there can be never be an assumption that what Milt publishes is true. And Milt blocks people from correcting him, so his blog is not worth reading.
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