Plymouth City council
NO ONE WHO HAS
been watching the Plymouth City Council can doubt anymore that the city of Plymouth needs professional management for its government.
The latest example came at their very last meeting, apparently the result of Alderman Ronald Lade trying to play maverick and conduct a one-person inquisition into the operations of the Plymouth Senior Center.
It all mushroomed into rumors that Lade was threatening to cut the center’s budget drastically or even shut it down altogether. Lade denied vigorously that that was ever his intention, but the rumor drew a crowd of more than two dozen senior citizens and center patrons to the meeting, where several voiced their objections to actions that were not taking place — i.e., cutting the budget or closing the center.
Lade apparently requested attendance figures and signup sheets for the center after Senior Center Director Jayne Olig apparently remarked at a council budget session that the center does not run any organized activities during the period when the county’s Food and Fellowship meal is served at the center, including set up and take down time. That amounts to about three hours out of the seven hours a day the center is open.
The alderman leaped to the charge that the city is paying for 70 hours of labor a week at the center — a full-time director and two half-time aides — while offering only 20 hours a week of activities. Olig, Alderman Douglas Dobratz and several others have stated repeatedly that, while no organized activities are conducted during the meal period, individual activities are available under the direction of staff, who are also busy with other duties. A simple visit to the center to observe its operations should be sufficient to confirm or refute that.
Instead, Lade requested attendance data and signup sheets then, according to Olig, came to the center demanding the information two weeks before the end of the period he had requested them for. At the direction of the Committee on Aging, Olig declined to turn over the data and Lade ultimately filed a freedom of information request to get it.
If that isn’t the definition of dysfunctionality, it’s hard to say what is.
There are procedures that need to be followed in any organization, public or private. If an individual alderman has a concern about a certain city operation, that concern should be addressed first through the proper department head, committee and eventually the mayor.
The prospect of some, or even all, of the aldermen running off on snipe hunts in the various city departments without coordinating or communicating with those in charge is a disturbing one and an open invitation to gross mismanagement and inefficiency.
A director of city services — which is another name for a city administrator, in essence — could ensure that any questions are answered without anyone in city government going rogue and disrupting city operations unnecessarily. He or she could ensure that correct information is communicated to the public and squelch rumors.
At issue: Something or other Bottom line: Do something about it
