GOOD MORNING FLINT!
8/28/09
BY Terry Bankert
Recently many want to critique Mayor Walling for 2 of his appointments, Greg Eason City Administrator and Donna Poplar Human relations.
So be it. A strong Mayor should be questioned.
But what is the goal of elected leadership?
Maintaining political power, hopefully by providing services the cliental voters desire.
The first things a Mayor must do is to assemble a team to set policy and deliver services.
The Mayor needs expierenced, smart, loyal and controllable people to achieve these public policy goals his re election will depend upon.
To lead requires the maintenance of political power.
Individual and coalition support of a Mayor will achieve that power.
Mayor Walling faces a quick re-election battle. If he calculates the appointment of Eason and Poplar , both tough seasoned political operatives, give him the ability to delivery public services and win re-election that is his right.
The Mayors objective is maintenance of political power by good service to the community.
Self governance is messy business at the local level, but then some say all politics is local so therefore messy.
Are you a member of this Flint self-governing political community or “ merely the helpless pawns of larger faceless forces”.
Nobody wants to admit they are a pawn so how do you expect your political community to act?
Do you not expect a Strong Mayor to collect the levers of power and a cadre of loyalist to accomplish his public policy objectives?
That will make him a leader not a pawn of the entrenched elites who preceded him.
What we need is a Mayor who can forge powerful pro growth political coalitions block by block, precinct by precinct, downtown and in the neighborhoods.
This is tough work.
It appears this Mayor is surrounding himself with tough people. Good move.
We have experienced for the last decade local decision making dominated by entrenched elites that could not cope with the obvious economic decline of the USA auto industry.
Small increments’ of effective policy are working mostly in the University corridor on third street, downtown and the peppering of infill housing. This does not reflect a dispersion of pluralistic power ,rather the same entrenched actors have effectively pushed elected leadership aside except for the county treasurer and created their own "foundation" to lead urban policy.
Our Mayor is of this brotherhood but his survival will rely on a broad based coalition and will be in conflict with the referenced entrenched interests. He must surround himself with tough smart independent operatives he can control.
My question to the Mayor is not to question his picks but rather his ability to control them.
Both Eason and Poplar can make things happen in this community. But what things? The Mayor will be measured by their performance.
So lets not be one dimensional. Smart tough political operatives seasoned by the application of power and influence are not Pollyanna’s.
We elected a Mayor to find them, smart tough people who understand Flint, appoint them, direct then control them and take the credits or deficits cause by their performances.
The Mayoral General election of 2011 is almost upon us. Mayor Walling show us what you have got.
You have made a couple of tough decisions.
Lets see a couple of hundred more.
Terry Bankert
http://www.flintfamilylaw.com/
Thursday, August 27, 2009
2 good decisions, 100's more needed.
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2 comments:
The decision to hire these two is a show stopper in my opinion. This can be nothing but a political payoff, pure and simple.
I respect your opinion, and often agree with you, but some decisions are more important than others.
Some opinions should be a no brainer.
Hiring someone who was convicted of bribing a public official, expunged conviction or not, is a no-brainer. You don't do it.
Not if you want people to believe you have moved on from the dirty politics of the past.
This does not bode well for Flint.
Well said, Terry.
Manipulating the levers of political power always looks bad from the outside. While I can certainly see the downside of the appointments, I'm also willing to suspend judgment until the results are in.
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