Tuesday, September 26, 2006 12:24 AM CDT
Column: Let city administrator do job -- Heaven knows he’s being paid enough
By HARRY REYNOLDS, Editorial Page Editor
hreynolds@jg-tc.com
Former Mattoon fire chief Bruce Grafton (recently retired, but, not voluntarily) and Commissioner Randy Ervin either split over department policies or they had a personality conflict. Or both.
Grafton, who worked for the fire department for 32 years (over five as chief), lasted for a few months over a year after Ervin took over as fire commissioner.
Since Grafton’s sudden departure, the two men have been trading accusations, but they both agree the main bone of contention was due to a dispute over management decisions and the future direction of the department.
The sound and fury of their disagreement puts me in mind of two tom cats fighting for dominance. One strains to hear reasons, but they’re sadly lacking.
“Randy said the council had no confidence in my ability to run the fire department. There was a unanimous request that I retire,” Grafton contends.
And Grafton believed Ervin pushed for council support for a forced retirement.
Just how the city council came to this unanimous conclusion that Grafton go, without benefit of vote, remains a puzzle. This action could not have been reached behind closed doors without violating the Open Meetings Act.
And it is unlikely that had such a vote been public, rather than clandestine, it would have gone unnoticed.
The city council should not be conducting closed-door votes on public matters affecting the community. After all, the city’s business is not the reserve of a chummy club of powerful politicians working behind the scenes.
Democratic government tends to function best when it is open. The more people in the room, the better.
As for Alan Gilmore, he was apparently little more than a spectator in this whole farce. He’s just the city administrator. It sounds like the guy is little more than a glorified city clerk.
The point of switching to a city administrator form of government was to have a professional keep the city’s wheels humming.
The history of Mattoon city government is replete with stories of council members meddling in the operations of the departments they oversee.
The squabble between Ervin and Grafton may have been over the future direction of the fire department, but from the comments both men have been making in the wake of the -- uh -- retirement, it sure sounds personal.
And we don’t need that in city government. One of the objectives of hiring a city administrator was to get the city commissioners out of the business of running their own little fiefdoms.
I suspect many city residents would like to hear what the policy differences were between Grafton and Ervin. Debate over the future direction of the fire department -- or any other department, for that matter -- might result in some creative solutions.
One of the odd things floated in last week’s story on the Grafton/Ervin conflict was the observation that many cities the size of Mattoon don’t have full-time, professional fire departments.
The idea is not new. It has been floated in the past locally by various people, but has -- as expected -- gone nowhere. If we’re looking at ways to trim government expenditures, such a discussion might trigger some new ideas on how to more effectively run the department.
Grafton is out -- Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again.
But, the city council members and the mayor should learn from this dismal experience. One lesson might be to seriously consider letting the city administrator do that which his title suggests.
The current search for a new fire chief has been circumscribed by Ervin’s declaration that Grafton’s replacement must come from the ranks of the department.
He further circumscribed the search by personally selecting the members of the search committee. They started candidate interviews Monday and are expected to make their decision by Sept. 29 -- this Friday.
There are only a couple of applicants for the post.
Ervin’s committee consists of himself; Gilmore; 911 Center Director Christy Johns; City Attorney and Treasurer Preston Owen; and Mattoon Police Chief Larry Metzelaars.
I wonder why the city council didn’t select the members of the search committee. Isn’t that the council’s responsibility?
Given that the assistant chief and his captains are, by all accounts, competent, there appears to be little justification for rushing to select a new fire chief.
So why the rush?
Why not advertise for candidates for the post? There might be someone out there with excellent credentials and some fresh ideas on how to make the fire department even better than it is.
The argument that it is imperative to promote from the inside unfairly assumes applicants within the department cannot compete with external applicants.
They can and they should.
If anything good comes out of this latest chapter of feudalism in government, it will be a commitment on the part of the city council to let the city administrator do his job.
Heaven knows, we’re paying him enough.
Harry Reynolds is editorial page editor of the Journal Gazette/Times-Courier. Contact Reynolds at hreynolds@jg-tc.com or 238-6861.
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