By Pauline Masson –
Very little was said about the city administrator’s resignation at the board meeting Tuesday evening.
Steve Roth said before his final day on August 11 he would make lists of everything that is in progress, everything the city needs to know, so he can leave the city in the best shape possible.
Alderman James Cleeve wondered how the selection process would work. He thought the administrative committee, which he chairs, would lead the selection process, but he wondered how that would work.
Mayor Heather, who serves on the administrative committee, said she wanted to reach out to the business community to help select a new city administrtor. She had written an email to aldermen saying she wanted to add representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and school district to the selection committee.
“As the administrator roll is involved with various aspects of the community, I believe it should be represented and these are key areas to do so,” she said.
No one on the board of aldermen said, “No, this is our responsiblity.” They are going to talk about it Wednesday when the administrative committee meets.
Here, in my opinion, is what needs to be said at that meeting. Businesses and cities have distinctly different needs. Businesses are in the business of attracting a maximum number of customers and earning a maximum amount of profit. This is the only reason to be in business – customers and profit. Cities need to make political decisions that serve citizen who elected them , as well as the citizens who don’t vote. The needs of business and the citizens are often at odds.
Both Mr. Cleeve and Mayor Filley were elected with undreamed of numbers of votes. Mr. Cleeve received 73.92 percent of the votes for his ward and Mayor Filley received 68.76 percent of the votes for her seat – due largely to the fact that the needs of one business, McBride Homes, were regarded above those of the citizens when the Manors at Brush Creek subdivision was approved.
The business got what it said it needed to make the subdivision economically viable and the citizens were ignored. And citizens are left with the traffic woes legislated into the subdivision.
This is not a complaint against the developer. McBride Homes had a right to ask for the anything they wanted. This is a look at how the city responded to that request. The citizens’ wishes and worries were ignored.
The is about the crux of the city government approval process for new businesses. It is incumbent on the City to balance new developments to “at least do no harm” to the surrounding area. In our community, in recent years, approval has appeared to weigh heavily in favor of business.
When ADB Company sought approval to construct their beautiful new headquarters building on East Osage at Hillview Drive, residents worried about the traffic and asked for traffic improvements before the project was approved. They said someone is going to get killed there. ADB was ballyhooed as the greatest thing for Pacific since Route 66 arrived and the citizens’ worries about traffic were ignored, ridiculed actually. And what happened? Somebody did get killed. Two much loved Pacific residents have died in traffic accidents in the heavy traffic at that location. Those accidents may have been described as driver error, but they ocurred in the traffic snarl that citizens had worried about.
This is not against ADB. They had a right to seek the entrances that met their design plans. This is a look at how the appoval process worked.
We recently witnessed Klance Staging overcome residents worries about a trailer storage lot on Orleans street (at the entrance to Liberty Field). City staff said Klance was such a wonderful friend of the city, that they (the city) needed to give them what they were asking for. Now oversized-load trailers with outdoor stage equipment stacked 15 feet high will travel through one of the city’s busiest intersections at the corner at First and Orleans streets to reach the city exit.
We are still witnessing a seemingly unsolvable conundrum over available resources needed for the Pacific Logistics Park, a ten lot industrial park, located off Industrial Drive and the residents of Candlewick Lane, with the planning and zoning commission being told by the city attorney that they had no choice but to approve the development without solving the traffic problem.
No member of the staff advised P&Z when they considered the preliminary plat for the development where they clearly struggled with the issue of traffic – that if they separated their approval of the planned industrial park from the traffic woes on roads reaching the new development the city would have to approve the development.
All of these businesses had a right to ask for the best reasonable interpretation of city codes and regulations. Business taxes are a vital part of the city’s revenue. But zoning codes also written to protect the neighbors of new business developments. And traffic is written into the plan approval codes.
The individul who is responsible for managing the city’s business, its staff, code enforcement and road usage is the city administrator. Whoever the city hires to replace Mr. Roth should be capable of and willing to listen to citizens that will be affected by a new business.
Of course we want new businesses. Of course we need the taxes that businesses bring. But we can do a better job of protecting neighborhoods than we have in the past. And the place to start is with instructions to the individul who will manage the city business, its staff, its obligations and enforcement of city code.
The board of aldermen need to man up here (pardon the pun Mrs. Kelley and Miss Meadows) and evaluate new city administrator applicants on everybody’s needs. They might spare themselves future grief in zoning and building approval disputes by reaching out to citizens to see what they see as a city administrator with the city’s best interests at heart. If you’re going to add lay people to the committee, add a few private citizens,
To begin this search with an obvious bias in favor of business stacks the odds against the citizens.
How do you pick the citizen members of the search committee ?
The BOA members on the Admin Committee are a good start since they were elected by citizens to represent the citizens’ needs and wishes. Although, many times when they made a heartfelt attempt to represent the citizens’ wishes they were boohooed by Staff members.
It will be a long and difficult process, as it should be, good luck to all involved.
They should publish a list of applicants and short resumes as the process moves forward. It should be open with no need for ‘sunshine law request’. Maybe an on line survey listing the finalist for public revue. Make the process as open as possible .
This is the time to regroup, rethink, reorganize and attempt to seek a consensus of what does this Board see as their responsibility to the citizens of Pacific. For a lack of vision the people perish. Whoever is selected should be willing to serve as “ Acting City Administrator” for one year. After one year a public hearing should be held to hear the citizens view of how well the Acting City Administrator has done. If positive views are the majority view then the Board should meet in closed session to evaluate this persons performance and if a clear majority view finds favorable they should then offer a four year contract contingent upon a satisfactory annual review by a majority of the Board of Aldermen.