Municipal mayhem

OK, that's a huge overstatement, but I liked the iliteration. But it's hard not to try to connect dots here. Esp. after Randy Leach, a fire dept employee and the chief for six years, mysteriously resigns and gets no kudos from his supervisors or the commissioners. In fact city officials wont even say whether he was terminated or resigned. There's employee confidentially, but there's also interest in informing your bosses - the taxpayers - of what's going on. Right now it tilts too far in favor of secrecy because people are afraid of lawsuits. But that secrecy breeds distrust, and I don't think govt. bodies HAVE to keep everything so quiet. They can inform the public about certain personnel issues if they feel there is an overriding interest to do so.

Anyway, Leach's departure occurs just after another dept. head, Gary Baugher, resigns with no fanfare, and while the city is undergoing an operational audit to see where costs could be saved and efficiencies found. AND, the city commission has been in lots of closed sessions to talk about personnel. You also have to throw in the commission's frustration at city staff for the confusing information about water billing payments and the questionable sales effort to purchase a new computer system, which made upper management look pretty bad.

To the average person is seems like wholesale changes are afoot, but nobody's saying so. I would encourage elected officials to be more forthcoming about the overall strategy and goals here. If there isn't an overall strategy, and these things are all separate incidents, which is possible, then somebody should write a letter to the editor or make more public statements about it. Because right now it appears that sweeping efforts to change personnel and organization is afoot. If that's the case, then citizens need to know WHY? Not knowing what's going on leads to rumors, mistrust, and a disconnect between the city and it's citizens, which is already a large problem, esp. in Ark City.