{"id":194,"date":"2011-02-10T17:55:50","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T22:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=194"},"modified":"2011-02-11T07:59:42","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T12:59:42","slug":"city-manager-search-lingers-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/02\/10\/city-manager-search-lingers-on\/","title":{"rendered":"City manager search lingers on"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"1\" style=\"float: left; margin: 10px 10px 10px 0;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* Medium Rectangle *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"8584504377\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"196\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/02\/10\/city-manager-search-lingers-on\/window-5\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/window4-e1304397333821.jpg?fit=200%2C229\" data-orig-size=\"200,229\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;4.8&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;NIKON D40&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;1244632481&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;38&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;200&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0.033333333333333&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"window\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/window4-e1304397333821.jpg?fit=200%2C229\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/window4-e1304397333821.jpg?fit=200%2C229\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-196\" title=\"window\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/window4.jpg?resize=104%2C120\" alt=\"\" width=\"104\" height=\"120\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>In my column for this upcoming Sunday in the Savannah Morning News, I&#8217;m writing about some of the issues of race and leadership that the city is confronting right now.<\/p>\n<p>Today, as many of you probably already know, Mayor Johnson <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/latest-news\/2011-02-10\/compromise-proposal-city-manager-search-developed\">proposed a compromise<\/a> very similar to what I suggested in a post on this blog last week: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/02\/02\/city-manager-search-is-there-a-way-forward\/\">City manager search: is there a way forward?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Mayor proposed ending the search, extending Rochelle Small-Toney&#8217;s current acting\/interim position subject to quarterly review, and letting the new mayor and council launch a fresh search in 2012. (I suggested a compromise position that was actually a little more favorable to Small-Toney: offering her an 18-month contract so that a new council could decide in January if they even wanted to do a new search.)<\/p>\n<p>Mayor Johnson&#8217;s proposal failed 5-4, but NOT strictly along racial lines. Three white members of council and two black members voted against the compromise. <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/latest-news\/2011-02-10\/mayor-johnsons-compromise-fails-city-manager-search\">According to<\/a> the SMN&#8217;s Lesley Conn: &#8220;The divided vote was prompted by concerns that some members on council are trying to backpedal on a previous vote requiring the city manager to obtain a $1 million bond.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>[UPDATE, Friday, 2\/11\/11: For full recap, see <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/news\/2011-02-11\/city-council-shoots-down-compromises\">&#8220;City councils shoots down compromises&#8221;<\/a>.]<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the politics are at this point, we are one vote away from reaching a workable position from which we can move forward. Starting the search over at this point would mean 1) hiring the city&#8217;s most important official in the midst of a citywide election (really, how many qualified candidates from around the country would put themselves in that position?) and 2) an ugly, ugly period of re-scrutinizing the entire search process.<\/p>\n<p>To those who apparently fear that the city will suffer under another year of Small-Toney, I would say the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Most of the anger directed at her should be directed at the political leadership or at the previous city manager.<\/li>\n<li> If Small-Toney has angered some city employees, that&#8217;s not necessarily a bad thing.<\/li>\n<li> The city bureaucracy that she inherited was hardly streamlined and efficient &#8212; I heard endless complaints about it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;m a little confused why those supporting the mayor&#8217;s compromise could not muster at least, say, 6 or 7 votes (or even 5!), but we are very close to a sensible decision.<\/p>\n<p>On a related topic, a friend asked for my thoughts about last night&#8217;s racially charged town hall meeting (SMN coverage: <a href=\"http:\/\/savannahnow.com\/news\/2011-02-10\/town-hall-attendees-division-tearing-city-apart\">&#8220;Town hall attendees: Division tearing city apart&#8221;<\/a>). I don&#8217;t really have any novel thoughts on it.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t attend, watch, or listen; I went to a long-range planning meeting for the Flannery O&#8217;Connor Childhood Home, which I&#8217;m sure was a much better use of my time. I read many news reports and Facebook posts about the town hall after the fact and got all the information I felt I needed. Maybe there was a cathartic element to it, but I frankly thought the meeting should have been canceled.<\/p>\n<p>Why have a town hall if everyone is already entrenched in his or her position?<\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In my column for this upcoming Sunday in the Savannah Morning News, I&#8217;m writing about some of the issues of race and leadership that the city is confronting right now. Today, as many of you probably already know, Mayor Johnson&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/02\/10\/city-manager-search-lingers-on\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-livingsavannah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-38","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}