Editorials

2008 TPA Better Newspaper Contest

First Place D9

The Clarendon Enterprise

Some folks may not like the idea; but as one who has watched the city up close, I can tell you that our city needs professional help. Clarendon needs a city administrator.

Most every other local taxing entity has one person who is responsible for the day-to-day administration of that government. The schools have superintendents, the college has a president, the county has a judge, and the hospital district has its own administrator. Each of these people are either educated in their chosen profession or have taken training to learn about the myriad of situations, problems, and responsibilities that come with their respective offices.

But at the city, we rely on a board of six people, meeting twice a month, to stay on top of everything.

When we had an administrator a few years ago, things were better. Ordinances and codes were starting to be more adhered to. People were beginning to get the same answers to the same questions, and city meetings were getting shorter. Aldermen were openly discussing the idea of holding meetings only once a month — like most other entities do.

But now we're backsliding.

Case in point: The final vote on the city's budget last month. After weeks of workshops and number crunching, the board was ready for a final vote when a discussion emerged about how the city gives raises. The consensus of the board is that raises need to be given based on merit, but that raised the sticky question of who would decide who was worthy of a raise and who would do personnel evaluations.

A good city administrator could judge for himself who was working hard for the city and who deserved a raise. He could, at the very least, make recommendations to the board, but it's a hard call for six people who aren't there in the trenches every day.

Case two: Last week's meeting. The older I get, the less tolerance I have for lengthy meetings — especially those that prove to be a colossal waste of time. That was especially true last Tuesday night. The policies and procedures manual was on the agenda, which is always a bad sign. After 10 or 15ininutes of a productive meeting, the board descended into a black hole on employee policies; taking the city secretary, the city superintendent, and me down with them.

First up was whether certain employees should use a time clock to clock in and clock out when they get to work, go on break, come off break, go to lunch, come back from lunch, go on break, come off break, go home, get called in for overtime, and go home from overtime. The debate went back and forth and forth and back until someone realized — “Well, Sister Mary Frances! This is already in the manual!"

Next up, should city employees be allowed to take their city vehicles home with them? Well, absolutely not, was the general consensus... at first. But then it was realized that only two employees are taking their vehicles home anyway — one of whom is the city superintendent and is on call 24/7 and the other is another worker, who is also basically on call 24/7. The issue seemed settled. These two guys could take their trucks home.

But then they got al tangled up in whether it was okay for the second man to take his truck to lunch. It was okay for him to take it home at five o'clock because he's on call 24/7, but it was an issue if he went downtown to lunch in it. So I guess he's really, only on call 23/7. The debate raged for 45 minutes before they finally voted — voted! — that essentially this one person could not go to lunch in a city truck.

A competent city administrator could have saved all that time and energy and would let our elected city leaders get on with the business of setting broad goals for the advancement of Clarendon instead allowing them to get mired in the everyday higgledy piggledy.