To the editor:
I listened to the first meeting of the new Yachats City Council last week, and heard a serious confusion in their understanding of how a “council/city manager” administrative system is designed to work.
In my past career, I personally held three managerial positions which reported to volunteer boards. These were all long-standing, mature boards, which had been operating for decades before I got there, and clearly knew the boundaries between policy-making and administrative operations.
As a state division director, I reported to a state board; as an associate director of a three-county community mental health center, I reported to a county board; as executive director of the Governor’s Council for People with Disabilities, I reported to a board of parents, agency heads and advocates for people with disabilities.
The misunderstanding of this City Council is demonstrated, in one example, by the “organizational chart” presented by Councilor Ann Stott. She has the “City Manager” off in the upper corner, with no connecting lines to anything. The only duty listed is “policy recommendations to City Council.”
As far as policy-making goes, this chart is not wrong. However, the entire functional organizational chart of the “Administrative Services” side of the operation is missing.
I have seen and implemented many functional organizational charts. Suffice it to say that all of them, without question, left personnel decisions to the manager.
The councils have their policy say as they approve the budget. In presenting the budget to the councils, it is the manager’s job to make the case for personnel – based on workload and office operational needs.
Once the council votes to accept the budget, they have implicitly and explicitly “set” the policy on that personnel issue. As long as budget allows, it is then the manager’s job to proceed with the implementation of the hiring.
This council’s wish to re-examine and micro-manage the hiring of approved staff positions, as well as questioning (yet again) even the presented need, is simply naïve. No wonder the meeting took four hours; the council is trying to do a job for which it is not suited, designed, qualified, nor assigned.
Having served over 22 years as a female manager, I see a second misunderstanding demonstrated by Councilor Greg Scott’s position that he sees no need for an administrative assistant, because the city manager should handle all those duties herself.
That may have been choice of the previous city manager, for any number of reasons; it is not an excuse to require the same of the ensuing managers. If Councilor Scott represents a unanimous view of this City Council, then they don’t want a true city manager; they want a “hand maiden” to the council, who is continually bogged down by the constant flood of emails, calls and office visitor requests, so that higher levels of management cannot be attended.
They are still acting as if Yachats should operate as with the previous city recorder, with a change in title only.
I would ask, if this were a male city manager, would anyone begrudge him an administrative assistant? In my experience, they would not.
— Fran Morse, Yachats