The News and Observer often fires volleys at city leaders for being too secretive, as the city’s hunt for a new city manager clearly demonstrated. Yet the N&O itself often leaves me scratching my head. I should probably let it go, I know, but I’m still mystified the paper is sticking by its story that Randy Stagner’s parking email was somehow the impetus for firing former city manager Russell Allen.
Randy Stagner was the one incumbent who lost, to Wayne Maiorano, a newcomer. Stagner was not a bad council member at all, but he got himself in a bad position when he appeared to be pushing for the ouster of former City Manager Russell Allen over a parking space.
I’m not privy to what went into Russell’s dismissal but to think it took place over a dispute over parking is absurd. Even more absurd is the N&O’s continued perpetuation of this myth. In addition, to ignore the fact that Randy was but one vote of six is also misleading and does not serve the paper’s readers well. There is no such thing as a dictatorship on the city council and no one can do anything alone. The paper misread some emails, inferred what went on, and inaccurately inflated Randy’s role in it all.
Hey, I liked Russell, too. He and I got along great and I thought he did a very good job managing the city. Still, I can’t get around the fact that he worked for Council and if Council isn’t happy for whatever reason then it’s their call to find someone new. If you’re going to beat up one council member for that then you have to beat up the other five who voted for dismissal.
If the start of this morning’s editorial wasn’t mystifying enough, the editors threw this in again:
But in the next two years, council members need to avoid behind-the-scenes divisions and work together, not in lockstep but with openness and candor.
The council needs to avoid behind-the-scenes divisions? As opposed to what, exactly? Public divisions? Work together but not in lockstep? What does that even mean? It seems to me that the council has been working fine together quite nicely over this term, possibly better than any council I’ve seen. Even so, this is democracy. Council members represent different parts of town with different, often competing interests. Differences of opinion are to be expected. It doesn’t mean that anything is broken.
Then there’s this:
And they need to keep their eyes on developing problems before they become big ones, such as the lack of oversight and the fiasco involving a downtown business incubator.
The business incubator situation should have come to the attention of Russell, who should have made the council aware of it. As much as I liked Russell, I can’t get around this fact. These situations are exactly why a city manager gets paid the big bucks (while the council itself gets paid next to nothing). You can’t assign blame to the council without first assigning blame to Russell Allen. Period.
On a tangential note, the N&O has still not begun signing its editorials after it said:
We believe that if you have something to say, you should be willing to put your name on it.