I keep reading with disbelief about how the
city manager system thwarted Miller in her quest to improve the city and make
it more accountable. What a crock. Political
self-interest is what has blocked Ms. Miller, and
much of it was her own.
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Dallas went through ten years without a
single tax increase, despite rising costs and an aging infrastructure,
because many, Councilwoman Miller included, did not want to vote for even
a modest increase, even while times were good.
During the 90?s, Dallas cut thousands of
employees who previously provided accountable and proactive maintenance.
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Citizens were told that through some sort of ?new
math? taxes could remain the same with no impact on
citizen services. Yeah, right.
Can you say water leak detection team?
Of course, while
city revenues remained flat, costs of material and services needed by the city
rose. This is why
Dallas was in no shape to weather financial hardships that
started in 2000. It was then that Mayor
Miller led the charge to balance the budget by cutting more jobs, more
programs, employee benefits and freezing wages for employees
who were left.
Mayor Miller blamed
the city manager system for poor morale, declining services and lack of
accountability. Why?
Ted Benavides warned her that when your work force
has not recovered from the cuts in the late ?90?s cutting an additional
thousand workers would cause problems. He told her
you could not cut the employees following up on services rendered without some
calls being lost in the system. He warned her
deferred maintenance would cost the city more than
it saved in the long run.
And you know what? These are all fairly easy
concepts to understand, yet many elected officials don?t
get it and continue to ?hold the line? for the betterment of their political
future.
The City Manager system is
NOT the problem here. Managing cities is what
these people do for a living. They went to
college and majored in this discipline. They
will do the best job they can because their future employment in this field
depends upon it. Taking the long view is part
of their job description.
I would much rather trust professional city managers
to do this, than to hand it over to someone who has no training in the
complexities of this job. Many Mayors are
smart people, but they are not trained in the various pitfalls and legalities
of running a major municipality. The city management system insures that
someone has the best interests of the city as their main goal and not just
what is today politically expedient.
In certain instances, the city
manager is NOT responsible.
If council and the mayor cut something, like
the water leak detection team, or repeatedly post pone needed repairs
to hold down taxes or spend money on other projects,
those decisions are theirs. Which is why it is
puzzling when a city manager is publicly flogged for allowing a problem to
occur when the funding decisions were not always made by him.
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The cry
that the city manager is not ?accountable? is not true. What is true is
that he is not accountable to only the mayor.
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THAT is what seems to be causing the problem we now face.
