The original story was about recent shakeups at City Hall, including replacing the City Attorney (Maybe Todd Epp will apply, heard he needs a job 🙂 But the story ends with a little tit-for-tat between Mike and Vernon;
Councilor Vernon Brown, who ran against Huether for mayor, said time will tell.
“It’s too soon to tell on how the communication will go,” he said.
Brown is more concerned about the secrecy of Huether’s transition team.
On Monday, Huether said he would not name the group of people who are helping him choose directors because personnel matters are a confidential process.
“I really would encourage him to let the voters know who’s advising him. I think a transition team is very important and should be open and transparent,” Brown said.
Brown said he also has heard from residents who were concerned about Huether not revealing the names.
“I don’t expect there were a lot of citizens who were concerned. I suspect the person who was concerned was Mr. Brown,” Huether said.
This pains me, but I have a feeling I will be siding with Vernon quite a bit in the coming days. Trust me Mike, many citizens and people in the media are concerned about you not being transparent about your transition team, when you are promising transparency. You can’t have it both ways. Munson understood that, and simply just withheld information from the public. Keep talking out of both sides of your mouth and find out where it gets you.
Rumor has it that former city planner, Steve Metli is one of the members of the transition team, no wonder he wants to keep it a secret. If this is true, I find it ironic that a mayor that preaches change would bring in someone from the OLD GUARD.
I don’t really care who Huether has advising him to hire in whatever positions he is looking at. What matters is who he hires and what they do going forward. Personnel matters are private and IF I was a person of interest I wouldn’t want that splashed all over either especially if I didn’t get the position. Change is unsettling for many…but then the same ol’ same ol’ can unsettle the same person. NOW, if Huether takes a month or more to make his decisions…THEN I’ll start complaining…let’s get this show on the road soon!
I really don’t think it matters who’s advising Mike, it matters what advice he acts on. The man is a political newbie and quite frankly, he will require the best advice he can get on a variety of topics.
I also don’t have any issue if he’s talking to a guy like Melti. He sure as hell will need to know the lay of the landscape and Steve definately knows that.
You get hung up on who’s got his ear than you also give him an out if he fucks up.
Although I am not a fan of Metli, I really don’t care who is on his transition team. Not the point I was making. You can’t go around telling everyone you are going to be transparent, then when someone asks you a simple question you refuse to answer the question because of people’s ‘personal lives’ etc, etc. Mike better realize real quick that once you involve yourself with the public and politics all that ‘private’ shit gets thrown out with the bathwater. If these people want to advise him on who to hire, great, but they better be willing to tell people who they are.
There is a fine line of transparency here l3wis. Provided he is transparent about who is hired and why and considering his “transition team” is merely a network for friends, associates and past or present city employees who are totally UNPAID positions and thus have no association with tax dollars, I don’t think there is any expectation that Huether shares the names.
The simply truth is, he is probaly not even doing anything on a formal basis… he merely is taking advice from these people who all volunteered their time and knowledge.
I have to agree with Mike here… Brown is likely talking out of his ass and making stuff up (again) just like he did when he said all those people were calling him and saying Snow Gates were a bad idea. The only person Brown knows that is worried about Huether’s transition team is The Velvet Hammer himself.
Now as to the issue of barbs being thrown two days in… I’d say you haven’t exactly been raising the bar of civil discourse when you continually label him as “Mayor Subprime”. That sets the tone against him even before you type the content of the post… so perhaps you have more in common with Brown than you would like to admit.
Huether won, Staggers lost – get over it. Time to move on and hope he does good things for the city. When he does something questionable by all means call him on it, but at least give the guy the benefit of the doubt as he dives in and gets to work. He isn’t perfect – he will make mistakes, but I’m sure we both agree he will do a much better job than the last guy.
Oh yea – and get a better picture of the guy. Every time I see that image of Huether it reminds me of Thomas the Tank Engine.
I like this picture, it reminds me of the one he used of Staggers on his last mailer.
I disagree, this is the exact time to be watching Mike closely and being critical. He will have to make a lot of crucial decisions over the next few weeks.
And like I said before, you are missing the point. You can’t tell people on one hand you are going to be transparent and ‘over communicate’ then turn around and refuse to answer a simple question. Really, what repercussions would it have if we knew the names of his transition team? What? Are they a bunch of x-cons or something? If you are not going to be transparent, fine, but don’t tell you will.
I understand your point, but I merely disagree with it. I don’t think Mike is trying to have it both ways. Personnel decisions are almost always private matters, and asking Mike to tell people who is advising him would be asking him to list the names of every friend or associate who has given him so much as one sentence of advice over the past few weeks.
As to ramifications, people will read into every name they could find, so if Mike was getting advice from someone then that person would be under the microscope and people would be digging for some sense of conflicts of interest. Assumptions would be made – many of which would likely be inflated or simply wrong, and reputations could be harmed.
Also, if Mike is considering making some changes and has a few names in mind who he has been talking to, it would be like asking him to give us the names of the interview candidates for those positions. We aren’t talking about elected positions here, so the public doesn’t have a right to know who is in the “running”.
There could be a number of other very legitimate reasons why he isn’t telling everyone who is in his personal inner circle or who has his ear. There could also be some very questionable reasons – but the simple fact is we don’t know, and I don’t consider this to be against his idea of open government.
Even the most open of governments have secrets. There are certain things the public should know, and there are certain things that are none of our business. I’d say this is one of the latter, but that is merely my opinion.
Even the most open of governments have secrets. There are certain things the public should know, and there are certain things that are none of our business. I’d say this is one of the latter, but that is merely my opinion.
I was with you up to that point. Maybe rethink it and post again!
I guess I view open government a little differently then you do. My criticism really isn’t about Mike, it is about Munson, who ran a very secretive city hall. I just would like to see Mike open the books, not just on things HE chooses to tell us, but everything.
I must join in. Mike IS communicating that he is looking into hiring new people..he could just not state anything and make the people wait until he’s made his decisions. Because he doesn’t SAY EVERYTHING you want to hear…doesn’t make it non-transparent. I agree with Costner and John. Once Mike gets into a few more than 2 days…then start mumbling about transparency…and yeah…what happened to the “new leaf” you were going to turn – a kinder gentler blogger? Habits ARE hard to break…I’m just sayin’. Oh yeah…and that block you are carrying on your shoulder…you may want to have someone knock it off…cause you are going to start walking and sitting funny trying to carry that much – Staggers lost…let go. ONE more thing…then I’ll stop (for now) what is the period of time that you have set to label Mike “Subprime” – another month or more or can you find something else to label him?
John is right, it is all of our business when tax dollars are involved.
Daizi- I wasn’t talking about personnel decisions. Obviously he can’t say anything if he is looking to fire someone. I was talking about his transition team.
I watched this race from the beginning, both sides. I think I have a hell of a lot more insight then you do. Sorry, I don’t trust the guy, not just for things he has said or where he worked or even that he spent loads of money to win. There is just something about him. He tries to cover up his lack of experience with fancy ‘Obama-like’ speeches. Time will tell I guess, but I am still uneasy.
As for calling him Mayor Subprime – that is clearly satire. It’s a play on the job he had as a subprime credit card executive, a job he bragged about all the time during the campaign. You would think he would be honored by the title? 🙂