How not to pick a City Manager…
A perfect example of how the current Ward 6 councilmember disrepects citizen input happened in early February.
Fred has been flipping & flopping back and forth on how to choose a City Manager, every since Jim Keene announced his January departure way back last fall. Should there be a caretaker Manager? Should the search be local or national? When do we hire a new Manager? Who chooses? Fred’s taken virtually every position that can be taken on this, reversing his own votes several times.
Last December, the council voted (wisely in my opinion) to convene a high-level citizen committee to review applicants on a far-reaching national search. That search was well underway, with at least 59 well-qualified applicants from Tucson, and around the country. The citizen committee was poised to do a great job reviewing their applications, and we were on our way with a citizen-led process to decide on our highest public servant.
Not so fast.
In early February, under pressure from certain well-connected people, Fred slipped a last-minute agenda item under the City Clerk’s door to call off the search, dump the citizens committee, and hire a new City Manager without any public input at all.
Now I suspect the new City Manager, Mike Hein, may well be the best person for the job. I think he could have won the job outright if the process had been followed. But now look at the hill he’s going to have to climb to win back the trust of a suspicious public because certain members of our city council, led by Fred Ronstadt, hijacked the public process and substituted what appeared to be a backroom deal.
Mike Hein is now the leader of our city, and deserves our support in his difficult task. However, I believe the current Ward 6 councilmember who made that task even more difficult through a clumsy and citizen-disrespecting backroom deal no longer deserves our support.
What do you think?