The Mayor came to the Neighborhood Presidents’ Meeting last night
Posted by Jim Sack in City & County GovernmentTom Henry was quite irritated, but equally affable last night. Tom, after all, is a nice guy. He came to the meeting last night to “clarify” misconceptions about a recent council vote to eliminate two of four neighborhood advocate positions. I was at the meeting because I am a neighborhood president.
The advocates are ambassadors of sorts, with a measure of go’fer thrown in. They carry the administration message to we presidents and to the various other citizen organizations. (As president of West Rudisill, I am also part of the Packard Area Planning Association -PAPA- centered on Packard Park) and a member of the Southwest Area Partnership, SWAP for short. ) There is a meeting a week of something, often two and, during crises, three or more. They also carry messages back to the mayor with whom they regularly meet. Further, I have the email and direct line number to my advocate and three times each week request a bit of data, advice or complain about something. In the city there are a few hundred associations, many of them active and voraciously consuming input, frequently presenting problems demanding attention.
In short, I have come to rely on my advocate to help me through the tangle that can be city government. Council members also depend upon the advocates to ease their load which is considerable. Councilmembers have two or three meetings to choose from each night and are chastised or, sometimes excoriated, if they fail to show at one or any of those overlapping meetings. Given that most council members also have jobs, that leaves precious little time for family, grocery runs, walking the dog or watching a game of some sort. Whatever loathsome characteristics you may wish to attribute to our council members, and I could list a few, most of them put many, many miles on the car attending and participating in meeting after meeting after meeting, ad nauseum.
Last Tuesday Councilmembers Bender, Harper, Smith, Brown and Didier voted to cut two advocates from the budget. They saved $120k in a $140+ million budget. Not much of a savings, more like cutting off your nose to spite your face, their version of cosmetic surgery. Councilman Tim Pape relies on his advocate, the same one who helps me. A fuming Glynn Hines held up the passage of the budget over the matter. He also depends upon his advocate to handle pot hole, dog barking, noisy neighbor calls, Barrett Bonding calls and more. Therein was the justification presented by Councilmen Didier and Smith to delete two positions: 311. They both say that the nascent call service has been a success and has reduced the need for four advocates in favor of two.
There is a more to the story. Didier has clashed with his advocate, so has Smith. Part of it is personalities. Mayor Henry asked the 75 assembled presidents last night whether any council member had asked their opinion. None raised a hand. I could have thanks to chats with Smith and Mr. Shoaff over the matter a couple weeks before the vote. I was not in favor of cut, nor did I strenuously object. I should have.
Mayor Henry last night made it clear “I did not support this, my administration opposed it… contrary to what some council members would have you believe… I will not turn employees out in the cold for political gain.” He echoed those lines more than a few times. He wanted everyone in the room to be clear toward whom he was pointing the finger. “It was a straight party line vote,” he said. He turned the meeting over to Vince Robinson who conveniently had a chart and handout showing who had voted against the advocates with their email and phone numbers. Vince, however, did not seem to know the process to reverse the vote, nor did he offer a strategy to accomplish the change.
One would think Marty Bender would be the easy change. He is the mayor’s employee.
Mayor Henry also suggested that they were rethinking the entire program and may dissolve the office, restructure it a bit and bring it back in another form. Same animal, new skin. They may also move two advocates onto the City Utilities budget and make them assistants to the remaining advocates with supporting responsibilities and a dollar drop in pay to show subordination. There are many ways around the vote and I hope the Mayor is more creative than he has been shown to be in this first year of his office.
It is also clear that two of the advocates, Ken Nicolet and Cherise M. Dixie, both serving the south side from the far east to the far west, have strong support among neighborhood leaders and council members. Perhaps therein lies a part of the lack of support from the north side council members.
If you find this article informative? Consider donating any amount you choose.
No related posts.
Entries (RSS)
Interesting…very interesting. I see this happen all of the time in the corporate world. Instead of addressing the issue (the conflict), they find other ways to rid themselves of the “problems”. It’s too bad that some folks can’t be honest and say look – this person or that person isn’t working out with me. I need a partner – they’re not a partner. Dialog. Seems kind of simple. But the alternative, seems to be much easier (I guess).
Was that one of Vince’s speeches the mayor used last night. He repeated himself about ten times. OK I got it. The mayor would rather have a bloated budget and payroll than give someone the pink slip. Why not cut two regular city employees and keep the advocates if they’re so important. That way you save the money you claim to be saving and now you still have more cluttered upper management in the city and Glynn will stop his 4 year old mentality act and do something for the city.
Jim, thank you for the information about the purpose of the Advocates. I did not know about their duties nor responsibilities. I always thought, incorrectly, that these people were advocates for certain ethnic or special interest groups the administration was reaching out to. As a regular voter/taxpayer, my impression, was that these people did not work on my behalf. If I had been more informed about their function, I might not have jumped to the distorted conclusions and posted those forgettable comments about them. Overall, the cuts involving these individuals are meaningless compared to the total budget. If these people do provide an invaluable service to the community, the other 2 positions need to be restored.
Cry me a river with this \"the two cut area advocates need to be restored\". I like the cut and I find insulting the argument that the cuts were a small percentage of the overall budget. So what!!! Every bit of fluff needs to be cut.\’
City government is overhead. When receipts are down, overhead needs to trimmed.
The city will not implode with these positions cut. Take a breath everybody and give a cheer to fiscal responsibility.
Dear John, sorry that I insulted you. It seems the determination of a couple of council members was based on their relationships with their two “advocates,” not on the concept. The advocates northeast and northwest are described as condescending and arragant during meetings with constituents. So, last night I heard a bit more from some council members. One member of council, Marty Bender, said just before the vote that the mayor did not support his own advocates. Marty, apparently, was wrong again. Henry strenuously supported his advocates last Monday at the Presidents’ Meeting. Additionally, John Shoaff pointed to a fly in the ointment, that the Mayor’s Advocates were previously called Citizen Advocates. Shoaff said the attitude on the 9th floor seems to reflect the name change and one of the mayor’s upper level managers told me the same thing: “with such a small staff we need those people to get the mayor’s word out.” Therein lies the rub. Council members north sense that the advocates are PR people for the mayor, while on the south side we have two advocates who are quite helpful in improving our neighborhoods. Two different experiences, two advocates gone. There is a move to restore the two positions or to reconfigure the positions and maintain the services. Mayor Henry needs to understand he is part of the problem and not blame the vote solely on council Let the horsetrading begin.
John,
Perhaps if you ever took advantage of these advocates or truly got to understand their purpose you would not be so quick to call for these positions to be removed. Dont get me wrong, I am all for fiscal responsibility. I just ask myself if cutting two crucial employees is \"fiscal responsibility.\" I myself am strong supporters of many of the councilmembers who voted to remove these jobs. I am proponents because, yes, they often look for fiscal discipline. But removing these two positions isn\’t the way to go about it. Yes, you have to cut somewhere, somehow, but overall, the Mayor\’s Office from what I understand has done a good job being fiscally responsible and simply cutting just to cut is not always smart government….government that is here to serve our citizens…exactly what these two positions do.