Opinion
by:
E. Eugene Webb PhD
Here is a quote from former Saint Petersburg Mayor David Fisher following his reelection after the passing of the Saint Petersburg charter change adopting the strong mayor form of government instead of the council manager form of government that had been in place for decades in Saint Petersburg.
Quote, “If I'd have known that the resolution
was going to pass, I probably would not have run for mayor.”
What that change did was effectively change
the role of the Saint Petersburg Mayor from a largely ceremonial responsibility/policy
maker to a role responsible as a chief executive officer for a major
corporation.
I didn't think Ken Welch was going to
make a particularly good mayor for Saint Petersburg, and you can follow my line
of thought by checking the two links below.
Ken Welch - Why Does He Want
to Be Mayor of Saint Petersburg?
Mayor Ken Welch - Now the
Work Begins
The reality of Welch’s ability to
effectively lead an organization the size of the city of Saint Petersburg began
to become apparent with the recent resignation of Janelle Irwin Taylor the
city's communications director.
Irwin cited bullying on the part of Welch’s
appointed Deputy Mayor Stephanie Owens.
The whole messy little incident unfolded,
and you can follow the progress in the reporting below from the Saint
Petersburg Times.
St. Petersburg city
communications director resigns immediately, citing ‘bullying’
St. Petersburg deputy mayor
resigns amid ‘hostile work environment’ allegations
Mayor Ken Welch defends former
Deputy Mayor Stephanie Owens amid allegations
St. Pete Mayor Ken Welch
should air out details of in-house bullying scandal | Editorial
In politically correct form, Deputy Mayor
Owens offered her resignation effective almost immediately.
Welch fumbled and bumbled his way through
the event. You can follow the progress in the last link just above, managing to
frustrate almost everyone involved and including most of the employees of the City
of Saint Petersburg not to mention the editorial board of the Saint Petersburg Times.
Welch’s ultimate solution at this point
is to eliminate the Deputy Mayor position and replace it with a Chief of Staff.
The mayor currently has a City Administrator
to handle day-to-day operations of the city, which, by the way, are supposed to
be handled by the mayor, and now apparently, he's putting this chief of staff
between the mayor’s office and those who work for him.
All of this is just a reflection on how ill-prepared
Ken Welch was to be Mayor of the city of Saint Petersburg and a strong mayor
form of government.
As a retail politician at the County
Commission, Welch, who followed most of the rules except those he didn't like(term
limits), was in a policymaking role where he bore little if any responsibility
for the implementation of the things he dreamed up.
He woke up the day after the election
probably not yet realizing that he was the chief executive officer of an
organization with a multimillion-dollar budget and over 2000 employees.
Under the old form of government as a
ceremonial mayor Welch would have been a great choice. He's very good at
politicking, glad handing, schmoozing, and pontificating when he doesn't have
any direct responsibility for making anything happen.
As the new mayor, he is literally the
place where the buck stops. All his administrators, department heads, chiefs of
fire and police look to him and report to him as their direct report and their
leader.
Selecting a campaign operative to place
in a key role is a classic example of not knowing what you're doing.
If this new chief of staff turns out to
be a Welch crony, a cultural pick, a lackey or some other non-experienced
political misfit, this whole unfortunate series of events will just repeat
itself.
If Welch is going to hire a true chief of
staff, he needs to do a nationwide professional recruit, find somebody who's
experienced in managing a government, and the staff related to the size of or
maybe just slightly larger than the city of Saint Petersburg put them in place
and let them do their job.
Welch is just trying to set himself up in
the position to be the ceremonial mayor and have a group of unfortunate
individuals whom he can blame every time something goes wrong.
I spent 24 years, most of it in the
management team, working for the city of Saint Petersburg. It's a great team of
people. They do a good job of managing and taking care of a wonderful city when
they have a competent leader.
E-mail Doc at mail to: dr.gwebb@yahoo.com
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Eugene Webb) Friend request. Like or share on Facebook,
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