If you’ve been following Newton elections for a while, you know that incumbents rarely endorse candidates that are challenging incumbents. For example, not one sitting alderman has endorsed Chris Steele (although some sitting school committee members have).
In this year’s contest for mayor, only one sitting elected official — Alderman Dick Blazar — has endorsed Ted Hess-Mahan for mayor.
Now certainly this could be because all of our incumbents admire the job Setti Warren is doing. Or it could be that they know and don’t like Hess-Mahan — or don’t believe he’d make a better mayor.
Or perhaps these individuals worry about losing clout with, or even being punished by, a mayor who is all but certain to be reelected.
In a letter sent to the TAB Blazar writes…
Yes, Ted is a long shot, but I respect his guts in stepping up when others who want the job would not. I urge all voters to educate yourselves on the pluses and minuses of the candidates-both of whom are decent people with good ideas. The question is which one will better lead the city and inspire its workers and its citizens.
Is Blazer being courageous? Foolish? Bold? Naive?
Very interesting view about Setti. I was most surprised to see the woman fired from the leadership role of the Recreation dept. She had worked there from the 1970s. What really bothered me was the swiftness of her firing. No explanation was given to the public which I viewed as insulting to her and the public.
I would like to know more about some of these firings. What does Setti try to achieve by these cruel methods?
Does anyone know how many/what percentage of the city’s employees left in the previous 4 year period and the first 4 years of the Cohen administration?
This might help with context.
The percentage of municipal employees is at an average with other communities.
Nationally, 50% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years, but I don’t know what Newton’s statistics are. Given the general trend in the profession, teachers should be excluded from the statistics of city employees who leave the city in order to provide an accurate assessment.
My comment has very little to do with the topic at hand …Dick Blazer’s opinion as to whom he endorses. I just couldn’t resist the blog reference “Jane on Dick Blazer Stands Alone.” The reference to Dick and Jane did not go unnoticed by Sallee. Here’s hoping Spot and Fluffy weigh in! Run Dick, run. (BTW, Sallee is running, too…for Waban Area Council!)
Over one-third of city-side employees have left their jobs in the past four years. That does not include school employees. Because key vacancies often go unfilled for extended periods, the remaining employees are left doing their own jobs as well as those of their former colleagues (or former bosses). Add to that the revolving door in senior management, particularly in Public Buildings, Performance Management, Chief Information Officer.
That kind of turnover has consequences. The current administration grossly underestimated the construction costs for renovating Day and Carr and adding modular classrooms, because nobody apparently picked up on the law that Rep. Ruth Balser got passed requiring retrofitted installation of sprinklers in certain sized buildings (including public schools) that are renovated. This was in response to the fire at the office building where Chestnut Hill Square is now located. The traffic fiasco in Newton Centre followed the departures of the City’s transportation director and transportation engineer.
Finally, the current administration has gone through two Directors of Performance Management, and the position has been vacant since December of last year. As Chairman of Long Range Planning, I led the effort to include Performance Management in the budget that the current Mayor inherited. Performance Management was also a key campaign promise of the current Mayor. A Performance Management system is essential in order to measure progress toward meeting the City’s stated goals and objectives, ensure accountability and help the City attain key fiscal goals and drive corrective actions that will improve the City’s spending and operational performance. It is not just posting nifty charts on the City website.
When one talks about turnover, one must remember that prior to Setti’s arrival, this city was not performing well. That is normally a predictor of personnel changes as part of the process of improving performance.
Our mayor has hired some outstanding managers since he came into office, but there have been some mistakes as well. To his credit he has acted when that became obvious.
Performance is in fact still a work in progress as a formalized system, but that doesn’t mean our efforts to improve performance haven’t been quite good. There is room to go further, and I look to a more robust performance management system to be a driver of additional improvements in Setti’s second term [yes, I.ll go out on a limb and predict there will be a second term.]
I just saw Kevin Dutt’s appearance on Ken Parker’s show. Ken Parker invited Kevin Dutt to appear on his show based on his July guest column in which he succinctly articulated how things have not changed significantly in Newton. Dutt served on the Citizens Advisory Group and as such one should take note of what he has to say.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/newton/news/lifestyle/columnists/x997478595/Kevin-Dutt-Its-time-to-examine-Newtons-fiscal-performance
The Mayor has proven one thing. If the city is being run as good as he suggests, it means we never needed those city employees in the first place. If the city isn’t running so smoothly, it means he has jeopardized the well being of this city through all of his ego driven revolving door baloney going on. Take your pick.