{"id":19196,"date":"2017-01-15T00:00:05","date_gmt":"2017-01-15T00:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=19196"},"modified":"2017-01-15T00:00:05","modified_gmt":"2017-01-15T00:00:05","slug":"memo-to-council-let-the-city-manager-manage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=19196","title":{"rendered":"Memo to council: let the city manager … manage!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Jared Miller is walking into either the job of his dreams or … of his worst nightmare.<\/p>\n

Amarillo’s newly named city manager is inheriting a big job. I wish him all the very best as he takes administrative command of a $300 million annual budget and a payroll of more than 2,000 public servants.<\/p>\n

They all work for us — you and me. So, in fact, do the five individuals who hired Miller to become the next city manager.<\/p>\n

But here’s the deal: The City Council has been thought by some around the city to be a meddlesome bunch at times.<\/p>\n

I spoke the other day to a former city staffer who left recently to take another job. The staffer and I were talking about the five finalists who were competing for the manager’s job. I got the question: “What do you think of them?” I responded I thought they all were fine candidates and that any one of them would do a good job as city manager.<\/p>\n

“If they’ll let him manage,” came the response from my friend.<\/p>\n

I have no personal knowledge of this, but I have heard the whispers, gripes and some chatter around Amarillo about alleged meddling by council members in staffers’ activities. If it’s true, it cannot continue.<\/p>\n

Amarillo’s strong-manager form of government entrusts the city manager with tremendous administrative authority. He hires all the department heads: police and fire chiefs, assistant city\u00a0managers, city attorneys and so on. His job is to oversee every single aspect of\u00a0the city’s governing mechanism.<\/p>\n

The manager also is obligated to follow policy set by the City Council.\u00a0Setting policy is where council members’ involvement ends, except to field concerns\u00a0from constituents they encounter at the grocery store, PTA meetings,\u00a0in houses of worship and perhaps across the back fence.<\/p>\n

Then the proper reaction to those concerns would be to refer the complainer to the appropriate department head or perhaps to the city manager.<\/p>\n

The new\u00a0city manager is\u00a0stepping into a post that has been the subject of considerable controversy since the\u00a0May 2015 municipal election that brought us three new council members.<\/p>\n

City Manager Jarrett Atkinson\u00a0quit more than a year ago. The council hired an interim manager, Terry Childers, who\u00a0promptly got entangled in a public\u00a0relations nightmare of his own involving the emergency communications center;\u00a0then he quit in late 2016 after calling a constituent a profane name.<\/p>\n

City Hall hasn’t exactly been a peaceful and tranquil place.<\/p>\n

This is the environment that awaits Jared Miller.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0am confident the\u00a0new city manager will succeed … if\u00a0the City Council lets him do his job.<\/p>\n\n

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Jared Miller is walking into either the job of his dreams or … of his worst nightmare. Amarillo’s newly named city manager is inheriting a big job. I wish him all the very best as he takes administrative command of a $300 million annual budget and a payroll of more than 2,000 public servants. They … Continue reading Memo to council: let the city manager … manage!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[288,290,6856,2418,5621],"class_list":["post-19196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-jared-miller","tag-jarrett-atkinson","tag-terry-childers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19199,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19196\/revisions\/19199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}