He Really Doesn't Get It - Part II

In yesterday's post (6/19/15) I attempted to explain why Jeff (The Arrogant One) Vaught was way out of line for accusing Eric Jenkins of micro managing city departments. Vaught is the one who just doesn't get it.

Jenkins was doing what he as a council person is supposed to do, make suggestions and attempt to give guidance. In no way did he attempt to micro manage city departments. On the other side of the coin, no matter how long a person has been in a position, and no matter how good they may be at it, everybody can always learn from other individuals' ideas and perspectives. Sometimes they will be good, sometimes not.

Anyway, Eric Jenkins had five suggestions. The first one is going to be displayed below. You can hear all of them by listening to the audio of the meeting, waiting for the minutes to read them, or keep coming back here as I will be presenting them here.

Here is his first suggestion: Department Reorganization: In looking at staff organization, it does not seem a judicious use of taxpayer dollars to fund two departments, when they could be easily rolled into one department. I would propose the elimination of the Development Services Department by combining it with the Public Works Department. The timing is excellent for making this change because the Department lead for Public Works has retired, leaving a managerial vacancy. Instead of hiring a new Department lead for Public Works, it would make sense to move the Director of Development Services and supporting staff into the position of Director of the Public Works Department. As a minimum, this would eliminate the cost of one senior management position. This would amount to a significant savings. I did bring this up with the City Manager. She was not strong in her opposition to the concept. However, she preferred the idea of combining Public Works and Development Services with the Planning Department upon the retirement of the current planning director in a few years. I disagree. The timing for a change is excellent now, and secondly, I think Development Services and Planning are not a good pairing because it removes appropriate checks and balances currently in place with them being separate.



Now, I did a little research and came up with the following information regarding compensation for the two department directors from 2009 to 2014.
Development   Low  $118,836  High  $154,715
Public Works  Low  $129,553  High  $165,562
Also, what other admin overhead could be saved by combining the two?

Rather than being thankful that his fellow councilmember is thinking about ways to make the budget better, Vaught decides to belittle the individual. Methinks he (Vaught) should be more concerned about doing some thinking himself rather than being a rubber stamp for the city manager.

When the rest of the suggestions are posted, you, the reader will see that Jenkins was doing his job, by thinking and recommending, and putting time and effort into those thoughts.  Vaught on the other hand would prefer to denigrate, wrongfully, his fellow councilmembers for doing their job.  As I said yesterday, his hypocrisy is showing as in the past when councilmembers have suggested reducing the budget he would say "show us how". Now when somebody shows some potentially viable suggestions he  becomes a shill for the city manager, and, as such is abrogating his responsibility as a councilmember.

Sidebar:  Where was the Shawnee Dispatch on this?

DTJVSD