By: Diane Benjamin
I reported in Part 1 that Hales blamed the past Council for approving building Fire Station #5: https://blnnews.com/2017/11/08/49548/
Hales claims the Council needs to assert their authority instead of always taking staff recommendations.
Two points to consider:
- Voting against a Fire Station will get you accused of not caring about Public SsafetyHales could have prevented the massive theft at the Coliseum. Two Council members warned him, he ignored them.
Hales said some things that needed to be said.
Hales also tried to rewrite history because he knows he is to blame for many things taking Bloomington down now.
This Council almost always approves what staff recommends – they are told to right on the agenda. Here’s an example from next Monday:
Hales thinks the Council knows more than the staff?
Sorry David Hales, no re-writing history.
Good Luck Joliet!
I think Hales is sending mixed messages. Hales asserts the Staff are talented and their judgement should be relied upon—that there is frustration and low morale because of micromanagement and disregard of Staff recommendations. He then turns around and tells the Council to vote against Staff recommendations. Seems there is a problem with communication alright.
FYI
Many elected bodies are told by their legal counsel that they have fiduciary responsibilities and that when they do not accept management recommendations or legal recommendations they are exposing themselves to personal liability if they are wrong.
John P. Brown
Hales is trying to manage his legacy on the way out the door. “Everything was fine when I left….I told them not to…” Hales is lowering himself down into a lifeboat as the Titanic that is Bloomington heads for the iceberg.
It seems to me the city of Bloomington is in desperate need of a study to try to figure out the present flow of communication within the city organization. After that’s complete they need a strategic plan to learn how to better facilitate communication that can only come from an outside consultant. That will reveal the glaring need for more city employees in the communication department to assist Nora in answering Tari’s email because that department is understaffed and underpaid. We can help the local economy by hiring at least two, maybe three new city employees with salary and benefits to assist Nora. I’m sure after Hales is gone we will all see what a tremendous bang for the buck we had with him. We may even need more assistant city managers to assist our part time mayor with a full time job. Problems solved!