Tough to pass over Fitzpatrick
It's going to be tough for the Common Council to pass over Acting City Manager John Fitzpatrick now that he and 45 others are official candidates for the manager's post.
He's a hard-working, low-key kind of guy who obviously knows and cares about the city. Of course, in the current environment, those qualities could actually work against him, if the Council thinks it needs an outsider to come in and shake things up.
The case of Richard "Résumé" Wells could be instructive. He's a finalist, again, for a bigger job in another state. This time it looks like he just might get it.
Without question, Wells has worked enormously hard to move the campus forward. But his leaving would come at a time when many of the balls he has gotten up in the air could be starting to come down: Funding for a new academic building is still incomplete, neighbors of the expanding (but unfinished) Oshkosh Sports Complex are still fuming, efforts to overhaul the general education program and to provide greater accountability about educational outcomes to the public are taking shape but are a long way from fruition.
(There's also a demographic time bomb about to go off, as this year's high school graduation class will be the largest of the "echo-boom," meaning that the number of "college-age" students in the state will drop to sharply lower levels for the next decade or so.)
Wells has earned the nickname "Résumé," and a fair amount of resentment among long-time staff, because it often appears that the initiatives he undertakes are for the benefit of improving his résumé as opposed to dealing with fundamental problems on campus.
Sometimes those two goals converge, but not always.
Is this the kind of leader the city needs? I think you could make an argument either way. Someone who uses the city as a steppingstone to a bigger paycheck somewhere else would undoubtedly pour a lot of energy into the position. But just as likely that person would be leaving before the job is done.
On the other hand, someone who is in it for the long haul will likely be someone who is resistant to "the fierce urgency of now," to use one of this presidential season's favorite phrases.
My advice to the Council: Don't forget that it's always possible to make a bad situation worse.
He's a hard-working, low-key kind of guy who obviously knows and cares about the city. Of course, in the current environment, those qualities could actually work against him, if the Council thinks it needs an outsider to come in and shake things up.
The case of Richard "Résumé" Wells could be instructive. He's a finalist, again, for a bigger job in another state. This time it looks like he just might get it.
Without question, Wells has worked enormously hard to move the campus forward. But his leaving would come at a time when many of the balls he has gotten up in the air could be starting to come down: Funding for a new academic building is still incomplete, neighbors of the expanding (but unfinished) Oshkosh Sports Complex are still fuming, efforts to overhaul the general education program and to provide greater accountability about educational outcomes to the public are taking shape but are a long way from fruition.
(There's also a demographic time bomb about to go off, as this year's high school graduation class will be the largest of the "echo-boom," meaning that the number of "college-age" students in the state will drop to sharply lower levels for the next decade or so.)
Wells has earned the nickname "Résumé," and a fair amount of resentment among long-time staff, because it often appears that the initiatives he undertakes are for the benefit of improving his résumé as opposed to dealing with fundamental problems on campus.
Sometimes those two goals converge, but not always.
Is this the kind of leader the city needs? I think you could make an argument either way. Someone who uses the city as a steppingstone to a bigger paycheck somewhere else would undoubtedly pour a lot of energy into the position. But just as likely that person would be leaving before the job is done.
On the other hand, someone who is in it for the long haul will likely be someone who is resistant to "the fierce urgency of now," to use one of this presidential season's favorite phrases.
My advice to the Council: Don't forget that it's always possible to make a bad situation worse.
posted by Miles Maguire at 7:06 AM
3 Comments:
I really like John and think he has done a nice job as Acting City Manager and seems to strike the right tone with the Council and the public. The problem is, his hiring would be similar to the Council's hiring of Wollangk 12 years ago. An inside job when all the clamor and reasoning for firing Wollangk was to have someone with more experience, better management tools, economic development, department reorg, etc. An experienced, professional city manager who can bring an outsiders perspective to a city that has had far too little turnover for new ideas. I think John should get names Assistant City Manager however.
neighbors of the expanding (but unfinished) Oshkosh Sports Complex are still fuming...
AND you would be fuming too if you property was being flooded and vandalized.
You should be fuming that elderly residents in a Zion apartments have been threated for trying to protect their premises.
Elderly citizens that don't dare venture out of their apartments
when the high schools kids are present.
City departments have turned their
heads because of MONEY.
Turned their heads to buses and cars parked in NO parking areas, turned their heads when areas residents calls to have speed limits and parking ordinances enforced.
University officials deliberately ignore city ordinaces with violations to the noise and lighting codes.
They have redirectly the ground water to compromise the ground the area houses sit on. At the most recent "neighborhood meeting" neighbors complained of garage floors cranking and sinking and house foundations sinking.
In the past 5 years Mr. Wells helped create a "super" playground with super problems for city staff and the neighborhood but refuses to help find solutions.
He wouldn't even give the residents of the area the common decency to listen to the problems he has created.
Typical polictian: create problems and let someone else find the solution.
It's to easy for Mr. Wells to spend taxpayer $$.
We need a city manager that will stand up for neighborhoods.
We need a City Manager that will demand enforcement of all city ordinances regardless of the violators status within the city.
Citizens really can't find anything intelligent to say about most council members.
Until they do something actually do something intelligent its useless to comment on what they should or might do.
Two aren't really focused on city issues just bidding time till a "higher" seat is vacated. Question is IF they can't represent the local taxpayers right in their own city how will they represent the same taxpayers from Madison?
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