We keep repeating the same mistakes.If I have said it once, I have said it a half dozen times--let’s get the best manager in the United States and I don’t care about the cost. I don’t mean one of these over-paid corporate execs. Is there any city in the 50 states that is doing things right? Let’s steal that manager away…give him a free house. Whatever.
All we need is someone who understands our city and will not let politics get in the way. We hired Paul Boyer several years back. The City Commission did not listen to him when he said not to go with Greater Bay. They did it anyway. Paul Boyer could not persuade any of them to come in out of the rain. So what happened? He went along with the politics. He went along with it so well that he gave away our pool as part of the Greater Bay deal. There are many other things for which I will not go into.
Next we hired Bob Baldwin. This is like marrying someone who only wants your money. No love. No loyalty. And no clue and never any intention of getting fully committed. He ends up neglecting you to the point of final exasperation. How many times did he tell us he did not want to be here? How many times did he tell us that he did not want to be bothered with the public or a part of our community? Denial of the truth put this city into even more jeopardy because for the last 1.5 years, this City has literally gone down the tubes
He told the City Commission not to give away our public building asset. What did they do? They didn’t listen. But the worst thing is, Bob never lead the Commission in the right direction, a direction that would have been healthy for us. He wanted to get it all off his plate from day one when he informed us that outsourcing was the way to go. Vespo followed suit. The Mayor has always been on that train. Not caring about our City is a travesty. We were worth his fight. He kept telling the Commission to give him direction when they actually needed to be lead by someone with our best interests and someone who understood our city and its needs. When the Commission asked him about something, his pat reply has always been, “I am here to follow your direction.” What in heck do we hire a city manager to do? Sit there like some puppet and do what he is told? That’s not my idea of a manager. We don’t pay someone that sort of money to sit there like a stone wall. It’s not Bob’s fault. He told us. It wasn’t like he was sneaking around during this marriage.
I’m reading a book right now that I can’t put down: The Lion’s Game by Nelson DeMille. In it there is a line that says, “…ninety percent of life is just showing up.” We need a city manager that knows his stuff and can lead us out of this deep dark hole we have dug for ourselves, not someone who just shows up. And that’s been a problem of Bob’s as well—not showing up.If you noticed at the last city commission meeting, Bob, when asked a question regarding the fire ad valorem and how much right now of our millage went into the ad valorem tax for that service, he did not know. HE DID NOT KNOW! This is after 20 months but he could tell you what Lauderdale by the Sea or whatever did. What is all this about, people? “But I like him,” says Commissioner Lowe. Well, I like him too, Ms. Lowe, but it's a bad marriage for Lake Worth.
The only thing that I have advocated is to hire the best. Recommending the immediate hire of a local resident for two months, to set us on track, makes sense to me. I have never said to go around the RFQ process for a full-time city manager. It is time to think out of the box. Nothing is worse than what we have now. We are in crisis mode. To continue on with what we have, even for two months, could kill us. To continue doing business in the same vein may not be productive. Can't we learn anything from past mistakes? Sometimes that old pair of shoes feels good but they no longer support our arches.
