From the Community Commentary section of the Santan Sun News, by Bob Caccamo:
Prospective City Managers will only come to Chandler if they are protected by lucrative severance agreements. Top candidates will avoid Chandler. Chandler is now the elephant burial ground for City Managers. (emphasis mine)
Love that last part. It's a sound bite worthy of TV coverage. More from Councilman Caccamo:
Chandler voters can repeat the message they sent in the Primary by voting for Trinity Donovan and Jeff Weninger and sending Wallace's hand picked protege packing so this cannot happen again and reason is returned to council.
Read the whole thing.
I got a reply from Mayor Dunn, and one from Councilmember Orlando. Interestingly enough, I noticed that both Mayor Dunn’s and Councilmember Caccamo’s replies came from their own city email addresses, but Councilmember Orlando’s came from the generic mayorandcouncil@chandleraz.gov. Leads me to believe he’s generated a form letter and is using city staff to do his replies! It figures. . . . Anyway, here’s his summary of his side of the story. Looks just as lame as the meeting:
——–
Thank you for your thoughts regarding the review of the City Manager. On
Monday evening, the Mayor and Council agreed by a 5-2 vote to accept a
separation agreement with the City Manager. As you know, the City Manager
works directly for the Mayor and Council. The events that culminated in the
public review were unfortunate. In the end, both the City Council and the
City Manager agreed the separation agreement was in the best interests of
both parties.
First and foremost, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that during the
public hearing, many positive attributes were revealed about our City
Manager. I, too, joined in the praise of his accomplishments; however,
there were several concerns expressed about his professionalism and
performance from our Council and community. Most will agree, the examples
raised about his professional conduct wouldn’t be tolerated in the private
work place and definitely shouldn’t be tolerated in government:
Several “heated exchanges” with a Councilmember.
Several instances of the City Manager yelling at citizens.
The president of Chandler’s “rank and file” police officers organization
stated that the city manager threatened to withhold the benefits of a
salary survey if he did not tone down his public comments about the safety
of his police officers.
However, my main concern about the City Manager was based on the inordinate
amount of time (in some cases months) it took him to respond back to me on
questions that I posed. The fact that many of the questions I posed to the
City Manager were because citizens like you were asking me for answers.
This is extremely disturbing to me because you (like your boss, employer,
or customer) deserves timely answers to your concerns. In many cases, I
would ask repeatedly for updates or ask for time lines for an answer until
your questions or concerns were addressed.
This was a major issue of mine during last year’s review of the City
Manager. He recognized the need to do better and agreed to work on
improving his responsiveness. Unfortunately, a year later, there was
little improvement.
Please be aware, I’m trying to be as professional as possible in my
description of the events that unfolded during the public hearing that the
City Manager opted for over a private exchange.
This issue has personally affected me. My neighbor of nine years is a
former City Manager of Chandler and previously worked with the current City
Manager. My neighbor is upset about the actions involving his friend.
Hopefully, as time separates us from this issue, he and I can once again
enjoy our friendship.
Finally, as a resident of this community for over 23 years I can assure
you, I didn’t take this issue lightly and didn’t want to see more
divisiveness in our community. I did my best without malice to try and give
the benefit of doubt and listen to all sides on this issue.
I understand the importance of this position to the effective operations of
the City. I and the rest of the council will certainly work hard at
finding a quality candidate who will partner with us in continuing to move
our community forward. I appreciate your comments and your concern for the
City. Please continue to stay involved. If you have additional questions,
please do not hesitate to contact me.
Best Regards,
Matt Orlando
Councilmember
(480) 262-8072
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Comment by A.M. — April 15, 2006 @ 9:48 pm |