I remember when City of Miami Commissioner Arthur Teele went to a Virginia Key Trust meeting way back when. He brought along the City Attorney, Alejandro Villarello. Teele was exasperated because the staff was not properly staffing the Trust meetings. In other words, they were not taking the group seriously.At this particular meeting there was no one from the Clerk’s Office to take the minutes. Teele was furious and took it out on the City’s Head Attorney (the only one there from staff): Teele made Villarello take the minutes. And he did for about 2 hours: and they were pretty accurate.
Rude, you bet. However, the meetings were staffed after that incident.
Why bring this up? I think Gimenez lashes out because of exasperation with "business as usual" at the County, and yes you could look at it as rude behavior. But you can sort of side with him with all the boondoggles we have in county government lately. I must differentiate, Gimenez's rudeness is not gratuitous rudeness like Natacha’s.
Readers: Are expressions of exasperation on the part of County Commissioners a bad thing in light of all the corruption and ineptitude? Is the Mayor expecting too much of the Commissioners? Or is this just one big pissing match?
10 comments:
that's a great question. However, they were all at the helm when all of this was occurring, the oversight is on their shoulders, isn't it?
Gimenez and Edmonson are new...they inherited what we have.
When a commissioner tries to do oversight and it is thwarted by the bureaucracy - staff - what then? I am amazed at how polite Sorenson remains to staff, although you saw her anger in action towards that lobbyist Ron Book. Sorenson never provokes Natacha even though Natacha needles her to death.
I am fairly confident that the County staffers are significantly lacking. These are people who are either looking to get ahead (and therefore view their current job as temporary) or are working for a pay check, in which case they do just enough to not get fired. It is the responsibility of the Chief of Staffs to the County Commissioners and the County Mayor to control, direct, motivate, and, if need be, punish the staff for failing to do their jobs. The blame lies with them and those that hire them (the Commissioners and the Mayor).
However, blaming themselves and their top staff aides for failings in the county would make the commissioners look bad (insulting and admonishing the staff they chose). This childish sabre-rattling and tantrums are only the manifestation of an anger that cannot be publicly acknowledged for fear of political fallout. Simply put, they can't be pissed at themselves, so they get pissed at someone else.
If you look at Gimenez's demeanor when he first started, he gave staff the benefit of the doubt... As all he got from staff was excuse, non-answers, misdirection, and the like, he needed to change his tone in order to get to the facts and truth. Unfortunately, that is the state of things at the County right now, and Alvarez has created a greater sense of us against them (Admin vs. Commission), which, granted, most of the BCC played a role in, but it does make governance a bit less civil.
At the end of the day, asking hard questions is what we elect our representatives to do. We owe nothing to staff, staff owes us, and they owe truth and honesty to our elected representatives, and if staff does not oblige, our elected representatives need to do what they can to hold their feet to the fire.
At the end of the day, Gimenez is just trying to find the truth. It would be much easier if he could just trust staff, problem is, staff has not earned any trust.
anonymous # 1
Who isn't working for a paycheck, or to "get ahead"?
If you're not, you know what they call that? Communism / Socialism.
Why shouldn't someone want to better their salary or position?
genius - If you are going to give Edmunson and Gimenez a pass, because they inherited this mess, well, the Mayor was elected at the same time, and until January he didn't have the power to offer any solutions. Not even the power to change the adminstration.
So actually, all he's had is 7 months. On top of that, old scandals keep breaking, and the legislature is manadating budget cuts. Give the guy a chance to see how he makes changes after he puts out the fires first. I would suspect that after the budget is done, some serious changes are comming to the adminstration.
At the end of the day, we have to distinguish between being rude, and asking the tough questions. The problem is, when staff takes a protective position, and do not fully disclose the nature of any situation for "cover," lobbing softballs their way is not conducive to extracting the truth. By the way, the members of the Commission have a fiduciary responsibility to the electorate to ensure that their taxpayers dollars are being spent wisely and ethically. Speaking specifically about Gimenez, I truly believe that his purpose on the dias is to extract the truth for ethical and good governance purposes. If he could get to the truth without challenging staff on their recommendations and rational, why go any further. Problem is, he can't, and has to assume an advocates role for the taxpayers, and essentially cross examine staff... It comes down to trust, and the staff has not earned it.
Etiquette? Forget that, these are tough times for politicians and municipal staffs, you always see the true person in times of stress.
Joe Martinez has it correct, send a number for each department back to the manager and mayor and let them figure it out.
They are so concerned with the minutia of their little pet projects, they are losing sight of the ball.
Clearly the mayor and the manager knew to hit each one of them with cuts in their private/public world to offend them, not sending staff to answer questions was a stroke of genius.
The game is over before it began. Martinez sees the problem, the others want scalps, not smart.
County staffers screw up one project after another. They hate being "found out" and "being held accountable". Carlos Alvarez should not enable County staffs incompetence.
it seems as if the county staff screws stuff up but you better believe it's the behind the scenes heavy handedness of commissioners at work in most cases. thats why the evasive answers and fear in their eyes
R28985, you are out of your mind... The Commission cannot direct staff to do anything outside of the public process. Staff is not doing the public a service... They should all be sent out to pasture...
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