Is Micro Managing Behind The Departure Of City Manager
Thursday, October 11, 2012 @ 3:45 AM
Very little has been written or said over the departure of City Manager Derek Bates who will leave his position with the next week.
Has the Mayor and city council looked, or for that matter, asked for the reasons for his departure? This would enable Council to either make changes to the manner in which they govern the city or, how they affect the overall governance of the city.
If the current city council and Mayor have taken a position of Micro managing the operation of the city, then, they should be examining what they have been doing with a view to changing their actions.
City council sets policy, not beinvolved in every day operations and if they have entered into this realm then they have overstepped their bounds.
Policy is saying we will buy the Prince George hotel, policy is saying we will provide tax incentives for business to renovate or build downtown; it is a policy to take money from a development fund and put it into road rehab.
From the outward appearances that has not been happening at city hall, and surely those people who sit around the table cannot, in all serious regard, think that they know how to operate on a day to day basis, a business which is spending over 100 million a year.
While we may never know just what has taken place in the background at city hall, you can fully expect that anyone who might have any intention of seeking the position, will do their home work to see just how the city of Prince George is being run and by whom.
I’m Meisner and that’s one man’s’ opinion.
Comments
I don’t think the Mayor needs to look very far to discover the reason he is leaving….
I think that a good City Manager will actually love that part of the job …. and it is part of the job of City Manager …. to educate City Council and work with the Mayor to make wise decisions.
I think it is a challenge that type A personalities will gladly take on. Of course, it will cost a few bucks to get someone like that and it will likely take a bit longer to find someone like that.
Then again, the thing that scares me the most is that the Mayor and Council may not be looking for that type of person. Instead, they may be looking for a “team player” (read pliable).
The whole of city council seems to think they are able to run the city. Do they not look at the qualifications of the people who do the actual running of the city. There is a lot of formal, specialized education in the people at the higher levels, something which city counci does not have.
“The whole of city council seems to think they are able to run the city. Do they not look at the qualifications of the people who do the actual running of the city. There is a lot of formal, specialized education in the people at the higher levels, something which city counci does not have.”
Case in point is everyone’s Messiah, Brian Skakun.
Micromanagers are a problem in a whole lot of workplaces. Govt workplaces are extremely bad for it.
You are bang on Dragonmaster. Micromanaging kills a workplace culture. Kills innovation too.
Just to stir up the pot: are we the taxpayers to blame? We ask the Mayor & Council to control spending and lower taxes and maybe the only way is to micromanage. When business are having money problems you have to micromanage to survive. Yes it can kill innovation or you can use it to get innovations from everyone as micro managers usually bypass their department heads.
I would suggest that Bates left because he was a Kinsley/Rodgers kind of guy, and he doesnt fit in with the new Mayor and Council. His leaving shouldnt be a surprise to anyone.
After all the dust settled in the election of Christy Clark as Liberal leader, we the saw a mass exodus of people. Those who left (for the most part) worked against Christy to get someone else elected as leader. So if you lose you leave. All thats left is the timing. Falcon, Abbot, Hanson, and others were dead in the water, once Christy won. Some of the more pliable **yes** men and women stayed on because they are chameleons by nature.
Mayor Greene is just cleaning up the lose ends and getting her team (as opposed to the Kinsley/Rodgers team) in place.
The problem is that Bates was a guy that had to be micro managed. He was in over his head and made a lot of bad decisions. He failed to seek or get good legal advice on a number of cases that cost the city more than his salary as a result. That alone should have seen him canned seeing as the issues were common sense issues run awry because of top down pushing the envelope of the powers of his position. The guy had to be reigned in by someone.
Look at the PG Hotel fiasco, or the womens recovery center debacle… he never followed the community plan just made it up as he went along and cost the city a lot of money in the process.
This is a guy who set priorities on real estate purchases, consultants, IPG, and ignoring voter priorities like roads, sewer and other pressing infrastructure needs. He cost the city far more than any value he brought to the position. I would venture to guess he knew this and felt the core review would as well… might as well get out while he could save face and move along like everything was swell.
I think the only smart thing he did was quiting from working for a mayor like Ms Green. Its just to bad he didn’t do the most important part of his job and that is to have a succession plan in place.
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