House Bill 716 / Senate Bill 976

Likely moot. Nevermind.

Cryptical Envelopment

A simple question has been asked of me. My policy for the ten years that I have held office has been to try to answer legitimate questions in a straight forward, unvarnished manner. In this instance, because I consider the question "in bounds", I'm going to answer it. However, because the complete answer wouldn't change anything and might do more harm than good, I'm going to be deliberately ambiguous and say less than I know.  Stated differently, I think the public is entitled to an answer, but it serves no purpose to pick at a scab. 

The question was whether I was facing an ouster action recently. The answer is this: I have it on good authority that in the wake of Joe Williams' separation from the City, there were one or more people who wanted rid of me, or at least wanted to see me penalized, politically and/or professionally, whatever they could get. 

Nothing has or will come of this nonsense.  Subsequent actions have (largely) made moot this ill-fated initiative. 

Have at it.

Don't Call It a Comeback

I don't know how or why, but my comment section was enabled. I didn't do it, but it happened. Not one to fight the tide, I guess I'll leave it on for now. I'll try to drop in and answer questions from time to time, and if I have something useful to post, I will.

Bloggers Anonymous

I have grown weary of the blogosphere.

There are too many people hiding behind anonymity taking cheap shots at people who are working very hard to make the community a better place.

I don't mind disagreement, debate and constructive criticism. However, for the time being, I feel that the ad hominem attacks, rumor mongering, and simple hatefulness outweighs the constructive dialogue.

I'm signing off, at least for now. People who want to communicate with me can do so by phone, email, snail mail, fax, or even in person. All I ask is that you tell me who you are.

Anyone know of a twelve step program for detoxing out of the blogosphere?

Experiment

I think I'm going to wander around next week and hand out $50 bills. I want to see how many people will complain that I'm not handing out $100 bills.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Here's my recap of last night's BOMA meeting.

The Good
The BOMA declined to annex about 40 acres of property east of Wilson Pike. I advocated against the annexation primarily because the annexation would beget an otherwise unnecessary waste water pump station. I hold myself out as the canary in the coal mine when it comes to pump stations because of the fish-kill tragedy of a few years ago. The BOMA also discussed de-annexing other land in the area to prevent the proliferation of otherwise unnecessary pump stations. Portions of land already in the city and under consideration for annexation last night would drain by gravity to the Brentwood wastewater treatment system, thus eliminating any need for pump stations. I have advocated and will continue to contend that good planning should recognize that gravity works always when it comes to waste water. I hope to have further progress on this epiphany in the near future.

The Bad
The BOMA, on a vote carried by Aldermen Bacon, Burger, Kriebel and Phillips, decided to retain the power to hire and fire department heads. In my view, this unnecessarily exposes the department heads to the vagaries of politics and permits or even encourages department heads to pay more attention to impressing the politicians than the city administrator, who remains their day to day boss.

In my opinion, department heads should be focused more on the city administrator's evaluation of their work than on the politician's evaluation of their work because the city administrator is a professional administrator of department heads whose job is to oversee the day-to-day operations of the city. The politicians should be focused more on creating policy and giving direction, in more general terms, to the city administrator and through the city administrator to the department heads. I consider it sufficient accountability over the department heads that the BOMA can fire their boss if the BOMA feels that strongly about the city administrator's supervision, or lack thereof, of the department heads.

None of this is to suggest that the department heads should be alienated from the BOMA; nonetheless, that relationship should be apolitical, or as close to that as possible. Alderman Randolph succinctly hit the nail on the head: we should have divested the BOMA of the power to hire and fire department heads for the same reason that the school board does not hire and fire principals. It was a mistake to retain this power, and I hope the occasion never arises when I could say to my honorable peers, "I told you so."

The Ugly
Mrs. McLendon taught me that if I have nothing nice to say, say nothing. I try to honor my mother, though sometimes I fail. Not tonight.

Entanglement

This is the organization chart for the City of Franklin as conceived by Aldermen Bacon, Burger, Lewis, Phillips and perhaps others: