That is the million dollar question. I think it is because he simply doesn’t have the votes to replace him. The county commission is chomping at the bit -- waiting for the opportunity to reject anyone else Alvarez could drum up. This leaves Alvarez between a rock and a hard place. Who can he replace Burgess with that the Commissioners would approve. Most of them would love another crappy person in that office so that the Mayor continues to look bad. How does Alvarez get out from under this?After a year of writing about the County I have come to one conclusion: It is just too damn big an entity and, thus, cannot run well. Added to that is district elections. You have 13 Commissioners running the county as a whole — who really only care about 1/13 of the county. And, just to divide it further, they also are divided on ethnic/racial lines.
Will the County ever improve. I don’t think it can. In all honesty, I think it is a hopeless branch of government, too broken to fix. Marco Rubio is going to have an easy time of promising positive change. Any change would be positive.
I would get rid of nepotism and not allow county staff to hold outside jobs for starters.
19 comments:
The only thing is: They don't fight publically.
Maybe they should, that is why I put up that graphic.
You need to find a new theory of why Alvarez keeps Burgess around. It is certainly not because Alvarez thinks he wont find a majority of commissioners to ratify a new manager.
The fact is the County Commission has rubberstamped all of Alvarez's director appointments to date. If the BCC wanted to give the Mayor trouble on his appointment authority, they would have already done so.
Your theory also does not explain why Alvarez also keeps around that useless Assistant County Manager crew on the 29th floor, including Cynthia Curry who has been the target of a criminal investigation for more than a year. Assistant County Manager appointments do not require the approval of the County Commission so Alvarez must have another reason.
I appreciate that you are trying to find the answer to this perplexing riddle. The rest of us repeatedly ask ourselves the same question and no one has yet been able to explain it.
Sure he can replace GB with someone the BCC would most definately approve of: Alina Hudak.
It's not like George is the only one who can do the job. People have done it before him, and people will do it after him. Alvarez needs someone he can trust, and who will execute whatever his vision is.
Let me sum up George with one phrase: "There is no such thing as a good cut".
Well that's BS.
Don't get me wrong, GB is a very intelligent person. But, it's just time for a different approach.
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You can throw my theory down the tubes: I have an open mind and will listen to the good readers on this one. Give me your theories... so far I am not convinced...
i dont think the commission has to approve the manager anymore. i think thats why we voted for strong mayor? alvarez should be held accountable even if burgess is the problem
Alvarez can no longer blame someone else for the County's state of disarray. After the strong mayor vote "the buck stops at his desk". As I see it, Burgess and the BCC are still running the show and Alvarez is comfortably sitting at his desk. The public occasionally see him cutting ribbons or at silly awards ceremonies. We did not elect him to do that.
GOD said:"After a year of writing about the County I have come to one conclusion: It is just too damn big an entity and, thus, cannot run well."
Could not agree more, now, HOW DO WE FIX IT!
Alina Hudek? Good grief! She is part of the problem, not the solution. Ditto for Torriente, Glazer Moon, etc.
The legislature tried to get rid of our home rule charter...this is the only way to get rid of the county commission: get rid of the charter.
The county seems to have little or no oversight of any departments. Isn't it the managers job to make sure that directives are followed and funds are spent properly? Think of the mismanagement of affordable housing, the phoney medical center, the empowerment zone, the airport, the rail cars in Japan being 'worked out' at taxpayer expense, the rail cars that were never maintained and are to be replaced, the PAC cost overruns, the cell phones at WASA, etc. You can expect some occasional problems, but the numbers of waste, greed, criminal activity, mismanagement are endless. The people at the top are responsible.
If you like Alina Hudek, you will LOVE Alex Munoz.
The fact is Alvarez keeps Burgess because that is what he Herald wants him to do. The Herald protects both of them to no end. They write about the failings of County Hall, and often, focus their anger on the BCC, when, at the end of the day, the real blame should be focused right on the Administration.
This is horrible.
What is the consequence for screwing up? The BCC says, we know it's not you, you are new, this started long before you took over, those are recent airport and transit director comments. The PTP was blamed on Shiver and Alvarez, they left in 2003, nobody looked at metro car maintenance for five years?
The feds are running housing and Jordan, Rolle, Edmundson and Moss have the audacity to give the federal liaison a hard time about puddles in front of doorways about a month ago? Now the corrections dept. is under federal scrutiny, the schools are terrible, is there anything in county government running effectively and efficiently? Name one thing, if you dare. I forgot, there is one the County payroll.
They don't want term limits, translation is WE HAVE TO HAVE TERM LIMITS.
Genius of Despair said...
The legislature tried to get rid of our home rule charter...this is the only way to get rid of the county commission: get rid of the charter.
Great - then Tallahassee will completely bleed us dry. They're already trying, the only thing that saves us is home rule. If you think Alvarez and Burgess are so bad... then you DESERVE that imbecile Rubio.
I think Burgess is married to someone in Alvarez's family. . .
The County can be run efficiently. You simply need some top flight no non-sense results-oriented administrators. You must identify performance indicators for each department, and put all the information on-line. Once the information is on-line, you can see what every department is or is not doing, and actually manage the system. It is clear that Dept. heads have no oversight, that is why everytime there is a scandal, Burgess is surprised!
At the Department level, each employee needs to be able to justify their jobs and their performance. If you serve the public, how many people per day,per week, per month do you service? How do the customers feel about the service you provided? Are you condesending or nice to the public?
If you write memos, studies, handle cases, and the like, how many memos do you write per day, per week, per month? Do long does it take you do prepare a study? How many pages per day do you produce? What kind of case load do you have? Were are the products of your work?
For people who do specific kinds of things: Were all the buses cleaned last nite? How many vacant lots do you cut per day, week, month? How many dogs are you picking up per day, per week, per month?
You see where this is going. All this idleness and people walking around the building all day doing nothing will stop. They will be busy making sure they have a job.
What a load of horse manure.
Please submit your resume to the Mayor and clean up county hall!
It's too bad the county does not have a way to really protect whistle blowers. A lot of mismanagement/corruption could be corrected if whistle blowers had a safe, anonymous way to do it. The system today punishes them.
Munoz - keep smiling fool soon he will end up as manager.
All I know is that RUBIO would clean the deck, and only bring in the best quality people from the cuban mafia.
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