The four candidates for mayor of Newton — Jacqueline Sequeira, Tom Sheff , Setti Warren and Ted Hess-Mahan — will face off in their only debate prior to the Sept. 17 preliminary election in a NewTV/League of Women Voters forum this Thursday at 7 p.m.
What do you predict will happen? What, if anything, do you want to hear from the candidates? Have you already made up your mind? Is anybody planning to vote strategically in the hopes of keeping someone else off the ballot? And is there anything that might inspire you to change your vote?
The Sept. 12 debate will air live on NewTV.org, the NewTV website and Village 14.
I would like to see an explanation of how they would prevent the Newton Centre “social/traffic engineering experiment” from being repeated. I’m not voting for Setti Warren over this.
Robert, the city fell down on the job in two ways: the planning process was flawed and there was a lack of public engagement.
I believe the flaws in the planning process can be traced in part to the fact that last year the Mayor let go the Transportation Director a month after the transportation planner left for a better job with the state. It took a while to fill those vacancies with people who were new to their jobs and new to Newton. In addition, the Commissioner of Public Works forthrightly conceded that the city should have conducted a trial before spending an “indeterminate” amount of your tax dollars on changing the intersection at Cypress and Centre only to change it back again.
It is also obvious the City failed to engage the public on this, because everyone I have heard from who travels through Newton Centre everyday has told me it was just common sense that the changes that were made would worsen already bad traffic backups. That failure to engage the public was compounded by the fact that the City did not adequately inform the public after the changes were made, and so motorists had insufficient notice that they might want to avoid this intersection at peak travel times or use alternate transportation instead.
While there were multiple causes for this traffic fiasco, the ultimate responsibility rests at the top with the Mayor.
Ok, that makes sense. I think that its important for traffic planners to realize that not everyone lives within biking distance of XYZ, nor do they desire to bicycle there. If you make it difficult to drive or find parking that will dramatically reduce the geographic radius of potential customers for the local small businesses. It will also cause a sharp drop off in customers in wintertime, making business more seasonal. Why are big box shopping centers like the ones on Rt 9 so successful? Because they have lots of parking and are easy to drive to.
If we want to make newton more like that, islands of retail surrounded by housing, then we should continue to adopt traffic planning that makes driving/parking more difficult. vs passive solutions such as speed indicating traffic signs (with built in radar and an LED display) which do not impede the flow of traffic.
Does anyone know who is moderating the debate? What’s the format? Who is filtering the questions coming from the audience? Without answers to these questions, I can’t say what my expectations are.
I’m looking forward to a good discussion between Mayor Warren and Alderman Hess-Mahan, but I’d be surprised if that happens at this debate. It depends on the format.
I wonder how the Tab got blocked out of coverage on this one? Today’s paper is the last before the primary. Maybe it doesn’t matter much this time around, but if things get closer next time and the same influence is at work — expect the same strategy
Hoss –
Why would the League and NewTV plan their schedules around the TAB — especially when they are trying to accommodate four candidates and they don’t know what resources the TAB could dedicate to it? Besides, the TAB is perfectly capable of holding its own debates.
The League’s top priority should be making it happen and letting voters know about it — before and after — and I’m sure the TAB will help with that.
I haven’t seen today’s TAB. Did they endorse in the mayoral race? There’s nothing online.
Congratulations to Ted and Setti for getting the Tab’s endorsement!!!
@Gail. The moderator for the Mayoral debate is JoAnn Berry from the Acton League of Women Voters. The debate is scheduled for 1.5 hours starting at 7pm on NewTV’s Government Channel as well as online at newtv.org. The format is similar to previous debates where the moderator will ask some of the questions posed by those in attendance as well as questions sent to [email protected] with each candidate allowed to respond and rebut in a timely manner. Since this is a LIVE debate, questions from those watching outside of NewTV studios are able to ask questions using #decision2013debates via twitter at New_TV and post to our page at Facebook.com/newtv. I will be filtering the social media questions and the LWV will be filtering the questions that come in before the debate starts. There is no guarantee that all questions will be asked in the 1.5 hour timeframe but we will try to get to as many as possible.
Gail — I’m pretty sure I remember that you were annoyed as the Tab editor when Setti dropped out of the senate campaign on a jewish holy day. We should let the full community in on political events.
@Hoss: Nope, I was the one who was annoyed.
Last evening, I attended a warm-up, the Ward 1 Ward Alderman candidate debate, followed by 3/4ths of the mayoral candidates. Too bad that the mayor did not attend, he might have finished in the “first tier”. But he didn’t, so we’ll never know…until tomorrow. I fully expect that tomorrow’s event will demonstrate the difference between sincere qualified candidates and sincere unqualified candidates.
It doesn’t seem to be online yet but the TAB endorsed someone named “Warren Hess-Mahan”…..oh, wait, maybe I failed to notice the comma in the headline after Warren.
Ted: In your Tab Op-Ed, you said that “the departure of at least a third of the City’s workforce during this administration, demonstrates the extent to which employees have become discouraged or demoralized.”
A third of the City’s work force is – what? – about 1,000 people? As I understand it, NPS loses and hires about 200 people/year. Over a four year period, this would account for about 800 of your 1,000 departures. Of course, in addition to NPS, there is the normal events of retirements, new opportunities, etc. for everyone else.
So, could you tell us how you arrived at these figures? And, could you please provide your evidence that this seemingly normal churn somehow supports your assertion that it demonstrates that 1,000 employees left this city “discouraged” or “demoralized?”
Yeesh. “there are the normal events…”
I look forward to your explanation, Ted.
Thanks to Jenn Adams for updating everyone on the moderator and the format. I did want to explain how the League sifts through the questions. Right now, I have a list of about 30 questions that people have sent in advance. We have two to three League members who are unaffiliated with any candidate who are called question sorters. Together they categorize the questions and either create a more comprehensive question or make sure that the ones they pass to the moderator can be addressed to all the candidates.
In the recent Ward 1 debate, we worked hard to keep the questions short and very direct. We will try to do the same in this upcoming debate. It is possible that we can’t get to every question, but we will try to certainly address the main issues.
Please keep the questions coming–either in advance to the League at [email protected] or during the debate on NewTV’s Facebook page and Twitter address. Thanks!
League debates are generally very fair and equitable. I expect this one will be as well. If the moderators are willing to be tough and keep the candidates on point and on time, it will likely be excellent. Generally, the format does not allow for this so it tends to be very bland.
It’s really not a debate.. It’s really a very polite a “structured Q&A”. A real debate would allow for cross talk and interplay between candidates and force non-pre-packaged answers. But neither the LWV nor TAB hosted “debates” were structured in a way that facilitates that.
Meanwhile, Newton Newsmakers is inviting the candidates successful in the preliminary to appear together in a 30 minute head to head fast paced program that would allow for the candidates to question each other with moderator followup questions. This will give voters a clearer comparison. We put the invitation out to the mayor first out of courtesy and a recognition of his busy schedule. We offered 4 different days and times. The Mayor’s office declined the invitation siting scheduling issues. We then opened it up and essentially said “you pick the date and times that could work, and we’ll plan accordingly”.
The time commitment is about 40 minutes. “Newsmakers” is the most recognized (multi-award winning) program in the past 4 years on NewTV, including “Best Local Political Program” in the entire Northeast from the Alliance for Community Media. We remain hopeful for the mayor’s participation.
Ted: Your Op-Ed also goes on to state that you “have a plan. It starts with open, honest communication—not just repeating “talking points, but a genuine conversation about the real issues, challenges and opportunities facing Newton.”
Holding your own standard to your words, Ted, do you think that your comment (noted above) regarding employee turnover was honest? Do you think that it demonstrates a “genuine conversation about the real issues?”
Or is it just one of your talking points? And an untrue one at that?
Gail, I will email you the information we received from the LWVN.
Bill, as of May 2013, over 325 city employees out of about 900 (as reported by the Boston Globe) had left the workforce. This is just on the city side. And there has been a revolving door in senior management positions since Mayor Warren took office: CIO Bob Barrett was hired with great fanfare and 8 months later he was let go; Stephanie Gilman was hired as Commissioner of Public Buildings and was let go a week or so after the override and debt exclusions passed to pay for the school renovations and replacements she planned for–and we still do not have a permanent buildings commissioner as we are about to embark on multiple school building projects; two directors of performance management have come and gone; during the planning stages for the Newton Centre reconfiguration, a week or so after the transportation engineer left for a job with the state, the transportation director was let go; there are multiple vacancies in human resources from top to bottom, and the CFO of the city is running it in addition to doing her own job; there are vacancies in key positions, including the senior management positions I mentioned as well as others, have remained unfilled. And I could go on. The revolving door and unfilled vacancies affects both morale and productivity. People are forced to take on additional work until vacancies are filled and watching senior managers come and go does not make people feel secure in their own jobs. Employees who are new to their jobs and new to Newton need time to get up to speed and when there is so much turnover it is hard to maintain the quality of service and performance Newton expects and deserves from its municipal employees.
When I read what Ted wrote about the workforce, I wondered a couple of things:
1. What’s the normal rate of turnover in an economy where it is not difficult to find a job?
2. How much of the current turnover is due to retirement?
3. Is it necessarily a negative that the city lost that many employees? Certainly one-third of the work force sounds excessive, but I wouldn’t be unhappy to learn that the administration was making a concerted effort to get rid of dead weight, as long as no one is being unkind. Do all of those positions need to be replaced?
The relevant question is: Why are people leaving?
The relevant point of discussion is not a statistical point, it is: is the City accomplishing it’s goals under the Mayor’s charge of the workforce? Ted could help by citing specific project failure where personnel were part of the issue — either due to vacancy where a good manager left, or due to lack of experience in a hiring decision. Got any examples? He also could take a look at our legal spending and settlement costs to see if workforce change is costing us unnecessarily. But frankly, a new hire leaving soon is never a good sign — suggests a bad hiring decision or issues with representing responsibilities. How many hires during the four years are gone?
People leave jobs for many reasons – lots of expected retirements (my generation!), people starting families, landing a higher position in another place of employment, finding a job closer to home. Not to mention, the notion that people stay in one place for their entire career is one that’s gone the way of the horse and buggy. This is a red herring if ever there was one.
Ted: Do you have any experience managing a large enterprise?
Change = New Management, which means a new approach, structure, technical aspects, culture, etc. in combination with a mandate to increase service efficiency. This is what voters demanded in the election of 2009. It should not be surprising that there would be (more) churn. Nor should it surprise anyone that in 2013, employers are asking more of employees. It is happening everywhere. Some like it. Some don’t.
So, aside from some anecdotes, how do you account for your statement that one-third of the work force left as a demonstration of being discourage or demoralized? (I happen to know some who went to greener pastures). Do you think that is an honest assessment of the workforce turnover in the City of Newton? If so, on what real, not anecdotal basis?
The Police Chief was fired because he told an employee to stop abusing overtime. When she was accused of another abuse, she counter-attacked by making charges primarily about sexist language used by the Chief . Most sensible people who attended the hearing before the Mayor’s Chief Operating officer or viewed the tape at YouTube “Support Newton Police Chief Matthew Cummings” can see clearly that the language charges are false. Nevertheless the Chief was fired with great pomp and circumstance tThis is not the proper way to end the career of a man who can given 33 years to keeping the people of Newton safe. Nevertheless by the time the employee’s case went to trial after months of foot-dragging by the Law Department and the Administration, the case was fatally weakened by the firing of the Chief and other circumstances caused by the long inaction on the city’s part. (It’s laughable for her to cry conspiracy when the police and the administration were clearly at cross purposes.)
The fallout from this case has included two senior police officials with impeccable records and the director of the Human Resources Department and most of her staff. It’s no surprise that the administration can’t fill vital positions with a part-time HR Director. Let’s just hope that the hiring are made to a higher standard than the investigator who didn’t even record his interviews.
Maybe the reason so many department heads have been let go soon after hiring is that they were hired with unreasonable expectations and then dismissed when they disappointed the Mayor.
With the city losing cases on illegal building permits appealed all the way to the Massachusetts Land Court and Appeals Court and with a raft of Police cases that could have the absurd conclusion of the old Chief reinstated and the person , who got him fired both back in their former offices, why is the City Solicitor still in her office?
To answer some of Hoss’s and Gail’s questions specifically, Ted did cite the case of the Cypress/Centre Street fiasco which happened soon after the Transportation Director and Traffic Engineer left the city’s employ. As Ted cited, the Chief Information Officer was hired with great expectations and dismissed a few months later. The Public Buildings Commisioner was indeed let go right after the override election that authorized three new building projects. The Interim Commissioner seems to be doing well but which of his previous duties have gone unfulfilled while he has filled the gap at the top of his Department over the past ten months. (Should it really take that long?) Perhaps the problem with the former Commissioner was that she was placed in a no win situation of developing the Capital Improvement Program when her department is only one of several that has capital projects in the mix. Why wasn’t this inter-departmental coordination task kept in the Executive Office. The loss of two Directors of Program Management leads to the question that Gail raised. Is this position necessary? Why can’t department heads develop goals for their departments and report on their accomplishments as part of their regular jobs under the supervision of the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Operating Officer, or the Chief Financial Officer?
As to what experience is relevant to being Mayor, I would respectfully submit that direct hands on experience with City Hall Financial paperwork, the myriad of paperwork generated by the international construction company that I worked for, and the direct services I provided as a bus driver for children with special needs is just as important to running the city government as irrelevant but impressive sounding administrative experience, At the start of the Kennedy administration, Vice-President Lyndon Johnson reeled off the impressive qualifications of the Cabinet members. Speaker of House Sam Rayburn replied that he’d feel ” better if one of them had run for sheriff.” (i.e. done real grass roots work.) The follies of the Vietnam War proved Mr. Sam’s wisdom. I’d like to think that he would be more impressed by my background than the Tab was.