The problem in this case is that John Bramante came into his new position and started making major internal decisions. From these decisions came a negative impact on the city’s government plans that were already in place before he came into his position. The causes of this problem were that John Bramante made decisions without consulting with the city council. John started spending unnecessary amounts of money, changed the city’s purchasing process, and changing people’s positions within the city government. With that being said John also changed employee’s positions and there were no interviews conducted for people who were hired to new positions. All of these new decisions were implemented without any type of transitional period in between the old and new. John’s unwillingness to cooperate with the city council members as well as a poor decision making process leads to three recommendations. The first recommendation will be to have the city council members hold a meeting to vote on the suspension of the city manger. The advantages of this recommendation are to maintain order within the city government and give ensure the rights state employees are enforced. The disadvantage of this is that the council members will have to start the search for a new city manger all over again. That process will be time consuming and take time away from other tasks that need to be completed. My second recommendation is that in order for city manger John Bramante to make any decisions moving forward he must have majority of the city council members approve the choice. This recommendation comes from the fact the city manger not only fails to communicate, but makes big decisions and implements them without allowing time to transition into ... ... middle of paper ... ...ke a minimum of two days and a maximum of five days to complete. The third phase is the “contingency plan” this phase is here in the event that the council and city manger come together during the hiring in the second phase and agree that having a majority vote on all major decisions will not work. If this were to happen there should be another meeting schedule within 24-48 of that hiring to decide how to move forward. The meeting will take as long as needed to get a 2/3 majority. A simple majority will not work in this case; reason being that the city government as well as the public need to be sure that all or more than fifty percent of the government will all be on one accord moving forward. This will both gain the confidence of the public of whom they serve and each other as well. This phase should take a minimum of three days and a maximum of seven days. '
After reading the case study Welcome to the new town manager, by Mary Jane Kuffner Hirt, I established three major problems the community of Opportunity needed to correct. These problems involved the water & sewer system, the balancing budget, & the pay-as-you-go method. The city manager, Jennifer Holbrook, must implement strategies that would correct these problems quickly.
The Committee to Stop Mahwah Mall, a grassroots group of citizens concerned over this perceived miscarriage of justice, formed in response to the rezoning. The Committee worked over the next few months to collect signatures for a petition requesting the Township place a nonbinding referendum on the November ballot. In addition, the Committee raised enough fund in order to retain an attorney, Michael Kates, who filed a lawsuit against the Council on the Committee’s behalf.
The publics perception of downtown became negative the people view of downtown was that "nothing is going on" and "nothing is worth saving."
...s; Plunkitt and those in Tammany hall made it their business to “know every man, women and child in the district,”(RIORDON, Chapter, 6) because they understood that those were their voting constituents. The reformers came to understand that they needed people like Plunkitt and the political bosses to look after “the organization’s interests, and the city’s interests all at the same time”(RIORDON, Chapter, 7). The system could not be reformed as long as the political bosses and politicians like Plunkitt remained in power. The political systems need reform, but the corruption in Tammany hall ran so deep, it would take a monumental act to reform the system. One of the problems with Plunkitt was, he did not feel he was practicing dishonest graft, but he and the political bosses did not see how their actions went against the people they had promised to serve.
The new city manager must have the ability to anticipate, think critically, interpret, decide and learn. An example of a strategic thinker would be if a major hurricane were to make land fall in the city. He or she would need to anticipate some of the possible concerns of the citizens might have during a major hurricane making land fall in the city. He or she must be able to think critically about how to get information out to citizens as quickly as possible, how to prevent major damage and ways to prevent possible deaths. He or she would need to interpret what is the possible affects of the amount of what that is forecasted during the hurricane. He or she would need to decide what actions must take place to keep the citizens of the city safe, out of harms way and most of informed. Most of all he or she would need to learn from others, such as other employees, local and federal governments as well as the
The city’s budget crisis was not a surprise, the City Manager had forecasted the shortfall and brought it to the attention of the city council. Based on the organizational structure, the City Manager clearly had more knowledge and information about the city’s budget, which was his source of power. However, the city council actually controls the resources (money in this case) and how and where to distribute the resource. Both, the City Manager and city council possess authority and power that neither want to relinquish; as a result, the employees suffered. Smithville city leaders needed to come together at the onset of the budget crisis and work together in a direct democratic fashion. When leaders come together and synthesize facts and resources, organizational members can increase the power they exert within an organization (Morgan, 2006). The budget crisis could potentially have been avoided had city leaders made an appeal to the public, explained the situation and offered a reasonable solution to the problem. Moreover, the transparency would have relieved some tension between the City Manager, city council, and the three labor unions. Because the city was not transparent and forthcoming with union leaders, the city negotiators enter the negotiation process giving members false hope of receiving salary and benefit increases when there were none to give. In summary, given the current situation, the City Manager needed to exert his expert power on the budget issue, join alliance with the union leaders, and push the city council to change city charter to implement the sales tax, which would have potentially off-set the budget
As Westerville's legislative body, City Council sets policy, establishes goals and approves and oversees the City's annual budget. City manager, David Collinsworth, deals with day to day operations and reports to the city council. Westerville has seen both residential and business growth and this can be attributed to its Boards and Commissions, made up of resident volunteers. These groups have helped shape policy to better benefit current and future businesses and residents. As a result, taxes have increased slowly over the last few years, and levies tend to pass in the area. Residents seem to have pride in local business and maintaining infrastructure and emergency
Now that we have discussed Chief Fortier internal role as a manager, let us examine Chief Davis’ internal roles as a manager and a leader. Chief Davis made it priority to develop a strategic plan for the Lowell Police Department, and he generated a variety of internal operational and administrative changes (Cordner, 2016). Chief Davis utilized his talented and dedicated staff to carry out his vision for the city of Lowell, which displays traits of a manager. Additionally, Chief Davis desired to facilitate open dialogue between the community and police department, which he accomplished by hosting a community between his command staff and community members (Cordner, 2016). I believe this directly demonstrates the internal role of a leader because Chief Davis set a vision and lead by example. After discussing the internal roles of each Chief it is now important to analyze the external roles of both Chief Davis and Chief Fortier. Chief Davis’ external roles included politics, utilizing other government agencies, and partnering with the community (Cordner, 2016). Chief Davis actually enlisted the help of a local senator to establish the Lowell Police Department’s mission statement, and he worked closely with the city’s government
The desire of residents in their respective areas to pursue a by a city consolidation means more than just
In his inaugural address, Mayor Williams “ran down a laundry list of ‘basics’ that city government needed to provide” which included filling potholes, collecting garbage, improving 911 response times, and improving the wait times at the Department of Motor Vehicles . Williams knew that his list of improvements should be a reconciliation of what the public values and what protects and enhances the public sphere. By publicly acknowledging these issues at the start of his administration, he was signaling to the public that he was committed to creating these valued basic services for every
In conclusion, I found the work Judd & Swanstrom on Reform Politics to be extremely useful and interesting in better understanding the background of the municipal reform movement, and some of the underlying reasons for it. In addition, they were able to do a strong job of conducting a critical analysis of reformers, and show why their policies were not positive for everyone. Nevertheless, I still feel it was lacking in its showcase of more positive examples of the municipal reform movement.
...ouncil. The quandary that planners seemed to face here was to work with the system of politics. The minutes of the meetings suggests that planners did not do enough to push for the initial proposals that are more evenly distributed. It is also interesting to notice the effect of council members and their vested interests in the regions they were represented. They are not characterized as professionals but when it comes to ethical issues and working towards common good there is no other body that has vested interests in community’s common good. When a political body itself takes decisions that are contrary to planners’ proposals it becomes bigger issue than ethics. But it is to be noted that the planners have to make the decisions objectively taking into consideration all the possible outcomes, in this case the effect on schools and education which they did fail.
The new public management states that, “cities are growing more and more like corporations referring to citizens as customers in the sense that they are providing product or goods (services) to the customer (taxpayers).” This had led to an increased demand for better quality at the lowest cost to the taxpayer. When looking at cost saving and alternative delivery municipalities must make a hard decision when choosing to contract out essential services.
Casamayou, Maureen. “The Columbia Accident.” Public Administration: Concepts and Cases. Stillman, Richard Joseph. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 105-114.
Plunkett, T. J. “ City Management in Canada: The Role of Chief Administrator of Justice.” PDS Research Publishing Services Limited, (199), Vol. 1, P.1-76.