Letter to Study Commission…rambling draft notes

  • review other roadblocks to democracy outside of charter
    • Resolution 5124, Resolution xxxx (disbanding Boards)
  • review elements in current charter that have been violated
    • 2nd assistant city manager position created secretly and buried within following year’s budget with no mention while we feign fiscal responsibility by nickeling and dime’ing .25 FTE here and there
      • an additional layer of supervision between Dept Directors and City Manager
        • so that City Manager’s time will be freed up to work on “policy issues”
        • make no mistake, that’s not policy “execution” as designed/allowed…..but instead policy formulation/development, which is strictly prohibited by an unelected bureaucrat in these United States of America
      • definitely “The Day the Core Values Died”
        • nobody took the organization and especially the 2nd floor of City Hall seriously after that
  • mayoral proclamations defied (welcoming community vs sanctuary city, etc.)
    • by staff decision to turn down already-awarded federal funding for public safety by refusing to sign sanctuary city provisions of grant agreement…….right in the middle of the local funding campaign for the Bozeman Public Safety Center
  • be wary of staff who have a vested interest in the status quo
    • a lot of unchecked power in City Attorney’s office
    • multiple examples of questionable action
    • countless, countless examples (refer to notes)
    • Gallatin County example:
      • County Attorney is elected
      • County Administrator is not elected
        • the County gets it…..
    • Study Commissioner Deanna Campbell is right not to trust the intentions of ANYBODY in that room
  • despite my previous stance………………..perhaps professional city manager is OK…………….current individual in interim City Manager position is an example of a values-based professional city manager that works as designed
    • opens the door for the ideal Mayor scenario
    • someone who has another life in the community and only comes down to City Hall once a week to cut the chatter and get at ‘er, makes the bureaucracy aware in no uncertain terms who is in charge, then gets the hell out of there and back to reality
    • maybe the only thing I know for sure after 25 years at Bozeman City Hall is that a person can become institutionalized by spending too much time in City Hall and completely lose touch with reality
  • wards/districts certainly sound good in theory
    • but what are some examples in the past where it would have helped?
    • certainly not with social issues
      • past Commissions could not have possibly been more liberal/progressive
    • those in favor of wards also seem to also favor high density infill, so it can’t be that, can it?
      • impression that south side commissioners have destroyed the neighborhood character in old neighborhoods (which they have) but does the fact that they are south side have anything to do with that
    • would have taken 3 fighters on the Commission to have stopped the destruction of Bozeman
      • true fighters are few and far between, especially ones with any intelligence
        • seems risky to narrow the pool with wards/districts
  • OTHER
    • similar to the Ethics rule concerning former City staff presenting professionally in front of the City Commission, don’t allow former City Commissioners to sit on Boards for at least one year, especially the Ethics Board
      • a Board which coincidentally has recently been tragically hijacked by a dubious City department…….dubious because:
        • spent almost an entire staff meeting whiteboarding “how to answer then Commissioner Krauss’s question without really answering his question”
          • and it was extremely rare for me to even be in that meeting
          • reaction of then city manager and other directors was as if this occurred regularly, while my jaw was on the floor – felt like I needed a bath afterwards
          • unfortunately the Commission didn’t have the will to dig deeper after the Mihelich-Bentley video
            • afraid of getting their feelings hurt more?
              • by, per mayor, those rock stars who could be making millions in the private sector but have graciously sacrificed to serve the public
                • pay transparency
                  • the only time in my experience that hiring and promotion decisions were based on merit was under complete pay transparency
                    • but some directors felt underpaid because they had more education and experience than their colleagues making the same pay
                      • so whined to city manager
                        • who, as a side note, had just told an entire roomful of staff that he found her “better looking than previous person in that position”
                        • then others found out and shit show ensued, end of pay transparency
                • Judge Herrington – the media needs to keep pulling on that thread
                • detail history of extra pay for half-dozen then a dozen at the top
                  • pay that was above and beyond the recommendations in the pay studies
                  • started at 8% then 10% (check notes) then was at least 12% when I left
                    • orginally called Housing Allowance
                    • optics not good, so name was changed
                    • I got in trouble for including this pay in a records request because technically the request was for salary info and this was not considered part of salary?
                    • tried to sunset it and keep it in place for the old guard, but Herrington found out
            • definitely not an isolated incident
        • locked down 2nd floor of City Hall after death threat and didn’t even notify the 1st floor which remained entirely wide open during the whole incident
          • attempted distortion of the truth afterwards in staff meeting was even worse
        • looked the other way on constructive discharge of employees
        • turned down federal grant for public safety because didn’t agree with sanctuary city section of grant agreement
        • when presenting Resolution 5124 a member of staff asked “surely we don’t think we as unelected bureaucrats can presume to tell the elected body what to do?” to which he replied “just do it” in a room of 50+ people
          • “just do it”……you’ll recall Res 5124 ironically stemmed from reported bullying
        • responsible for urban camping by scaring the commission into thinking they had to allow the homeless to terrorize our town
        • responsible for unfettered growth by scaring commission into thinking they have to rubber stamp every development project that checks all the boxes
        • as supervisor of payroll for many years I saw things in this department that I saw nowhere else
          • maybe because of impression that it takes both the commission and the city manager, along with cause in Montana, to fire him
            • doesn’t much care about cause with other employees
              • several employees approached me for assistance, even ones I didn’t know very well, and especially after I first ran for mayor
              • constructive discharge
              • illegal taking of property (job is your property in MT) without cause or consideration
            • “reinstatement” of past employees into different job titles than before with much higher pay without job even being posted internally or externally
            • off-cycle pay adjustments
            • unique ability to bank leave (check notes?)
      • can the Study Commission also undo this when they reset the Advisory Boards to how they were before?
      • Brian: !!!! SAVE AS PRIVATE DRAFT***********CHECK NOTES BEFORE FINAL PUBLISHING TO WEBSITE and/or SENDING TO STUDY COMMISSION