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:

Correction:

The Williamson A.M. has a piece today that inaccurately portrays the events of a meeting. First of all, I am the Ward 2 alderman, not the Ward 3 alderman as has been reported twice this week (once I figured was a typo, twice is an error both times).

Second, I did indicate that I wanted to have a follow-up meeting on the step pay plan quickly, and to accomodate that I indicated that I would make myself available during the day. I did not indicate a preference for a day-time meeting and I did not suggest a day-time meeting rather than an evening meeting.

Third, my "outburst" came after Mr. Johnson said that an alderman had requested that no meetings ever be scheduled during the business day. To that, I inquired if the alderman in question was on the committee that was trying to schedule a meeting. Mr. Johnson said the alderman with the perpetual day-time schedule conflict was NOT on the committee we were trying to schedule. It was then that I said, in so many words, that I was not worried about the schedule conflicts of an alderman who wasn't even on the committee for which we were trying to schedule a meeting.

I feel better now.