Leadership

The City of Marina is at a definite cross roads and it may all come to a head on Monday night in a closed session meeting. It appears our City Council majority wants to fire our City Manager and throw the management of our City into complete chaos. If that wasn’t outrageous enough, it appears that the Mayor will do so from Hawaii via conference call. Is this leadership?

Here are just a couple of the many examples of leadership by our City Manager that the Council should note. It was back in 2007 that the City Manager decided to slow the hiring of City employees. This was done to make sure the City did not get too far ahead of the developments and to make sure that the proposed projects moved ahead. He has been doing so ever since, saving the City over $11 million dollars in unfilled or eliminated positions. As a result, through the hard times of the past few years the City laid off very few, if any, employees unlike other Cities in our area. This is fiscally responsible leadership.

I am aware of at least two senior City staff members who have been offered jobs elsewhere. These jobs offered more pay, more prestige and frankly more job security. Both of these individuals passed on the opportunities because they felt they were part of an amazing team of professionals here in Marina, a team that they did not want to break up even through some very tough challenges. A team put in place and led by our City Manager. This is managerial leadership.

As for our City Council majority, they have not brought one additional dime of income to the City in over three years. This Council continues to attempt to balance the City budget on the backs of our employees. I would argue that the potential firing of the City Manager is an attempt at intimidation of the employee groups that they make further concessions. Is this leadership?

Very shortly we will have a mid-year review of the City’s finances. I am sure it will be very evident that we will have to lay off employees and substantially cut services sooner than later. Something our citizens have already opposed. This Council majority has held dozens of meetings trying to cut items from our budgets like employees and services but not a single meeting to explore additional sources of revenue. Is this leadership?

So what can the concerned citizens of Marina we do at this point? For starters we can show up to the City Council Chambers on Monday night (1/9/12) at 6:30 and let your feelings be known during public comment. We can stand up and demand that we retain the proven leadership that our City Manager has shown over the years, and we can state our lack of confidence in the Council majority’s ability to lead this City.

More later….