Tuesday, May 10, 2011

COMMENTARY Mayor & City Council: A Dearth of Genuine Leadership

Carmel-by-the-Sea residents, voters and taxpayers would have been better served by Mayor Sue McCloud, City Council Members Jason Burnett, Paula Hazdovac, Karen Sharp and Ken Talmage had they done the following:

Unanimously voted to terminate City Administrator Rich Guillen from employment due to his “offense involving a violation of his official duties,” namely violating the City’s Code of Ethics (2.52.010) which requires “integrity, honesty, courtesy and fairness in all relationships, private and public” and specifically lying about his conduct with respect to then Human Resources Manager Jane Kingsley Miller and saved taxpayers approximately $100,000 in severance pay of six months salary and health benefits.

Provided direction to the City Attorney to revise the City’s Harassment Prevention Policy, conducted public meetings for citizen input, and adopted a revised Policy that city employees and citizens understood and supported and hired a “Personnel Officer” within a period of a few months.

Provided policy direction to then Public Safety Director George Rawson to research and present a thorough fire protection services options comparison between stand-alone fire department, Monterey Fire contract and Cal Fire contract, conducted public meetings for citizen input and adopted a fire protection service alternative within a reasonable period of time.

Supported the City’s General Plan, Zoning Code and Design Guidelines by unanimously voting to grant appellant Don Mackey’s appeal of the Planning Commission’s decision to deny two two unit, multi-family residential projects on San Carlos Street 3 SE of 7th Avenue and on Mission Street 3 SW of 7th Avenue, two proposed projects consistent with the General Plan and Commercial Design Guidelines and in compliance with the Zoning Requirements for the RC District.

Genuine leadership is all about honesty, competence and intelligence. For instance, honesty, competence and intelligence requires that our elected representatives accept responsibility for not taking seriously the claims of harassment, discrimination and retaliation of at least six city employees, accept responsibility for not following the City’s Harassment Prevention Policy and pledge to have a zero tolerance policy for city workplace harassment, discrimination and retaliation. To date, the mayor and city council members have not demonstrated honesty, competence and intelligence in dealing with the aforementioned issues and other issues important to Carmelites and the City. Until the mayor and city council members demonstrate qualities of leadership, namely honesty, competence and intelligence, there will be a dearth of leadership at City Hall and a resultant lack of credibility with the residents, voters and taxpayers of Carmel-by-the-Sea.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen. And you only scratched the surface. The town is run by a tight knit group of people who only think of themselves and their self serving supporters.

It is becoming more and more discouraging to be a resident here.

VillageinForest said...

A discouraging aspect of status quo Carmel is that Carmelites seem more distraught over the negative publicity emanating from the public exposure of the culture of harassment, discrimination and retaliation at city hall than they are upset that the culture of harassment, discrimination and retaliation has existed at city hall for eleven years. Also depressing is the fact that some Carmelites knew about the “culture” since 2003 and did nothing about it to the current council which has no credibility with anyone with an ethical value system based on their cowardice and ineptitude in dealing with the Guillen fiasco. It remains a mystery how it is that a supposedly well educated, affluent community could be so apathetic or ignorant about corruption in their name at city hall and continue to elect the person most responsible for that “culture,” Mayor Sue McCloud.

Thank Goodness said...

Thank goodness there are activities and oportunities for positive participation in the Carmel/Monterey Peninsula/County area which offset the negatives in Carmel's city government. And thank goodness we can get satisfaction and meaning in endeavors outside of government not available in or through government. Governments at all levels today have become obstacles to our pursuit of happiness and Carmel's city government is a case study.