Chaos
Odd story across the banner of the 0 this morning about Portland Mayor Tom Potter. He's good, he's bad, he unifies the council, he takes too much control for himself -- I couldn't make heads nor tails of it. I defy you to read it and sum up what it's trying to say, in 50 words or less. "That's not exactly shocking," the article parenthetically observed at one point. The 0 ought to make that its next new motto.
At the very end, however, there was an interesting passage about the appointment of bureau managers:
The city's governing charter and City Hall precedent say that the individual commissioner in charge of a given bureau chooses his or her own managers. But under a draft produced in July, the mayor and his aides would decide which applicants got interviewed. All five council members, and interested citizens, would get a chance to question candidates. The mayor and the commissioner-in-charge would both interview the finalists.Here's a real weakness in the city's antiquated commission form of government. Each commissioner gets to pick the managers of his or her bureaus. On one level, that makes sense, since the commissioner ultimately runs each bureau assigned to him or her. Might as well have good chemistry between the commissioner and the hired gun director, right?All four commissioners objected, loudly. Hiring bureau managers was one power they weren't willing to give up.
Potter listened. The new-and-improved hiring guidelines maintain a bit of collaboration -- "Council members will consult each other," it says -- but leave most of the decision-making to the commissioner-in-charge.
But then the mayor has the power to reshuffle the bureaus among the commissioners -- once a year, I think it is. After the scramble, Erik Sten gets to work with, say, Randy Leonard's bureau chief picks. So much for chemistry. And when the manager gets canned, so much for continuity.
"Chaos" is how the article described our city commission government. I'm not sure that kind of word is appropriate for a "news" story, but it sounds right.
| Posted at 3:23 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (1)
The mayor can reassign bureaus whenever, how often he or she wants, without restriction. Just as he can keep the bureaus himself however long he wants, as Mayor Potter showed. And, yes, as a bureau manager, you can be working for Commissioner Saltzman one day --supporting whatever "vision" he has-- and then wake up and be under Commissioner Leonard the next day. It is unquestionably disruptive, and puts these top at-will managers under heavy political pressure.
The Civil Service system exists to put a wall (however porous) between the politicians and professional bureaucrats who should be relatively immune from political pressures. Speaking as one of those, my boss is --or should be-- the public at large, and my guiding vision the City Code, Charter, and code of ethics, rather than any particular politician's whim or agenda.
Ironically, there's a proposal afloat in the City to basically further strip ALL non-represented city employees of "bumping" and seniority rights, effectively making all of us "at will" employees, and much more subject to political pressure, with way more employees becomming political appointees. A trend that could take us back to the cronyism pre-dating Civil Service reform that saw entire work-forces changing with each election. Chaos indeed.
Posted by Frank Dufay | September 22, 2005 3:49 AM