Pot, meet kettle
Fear and Loathing in Waynesboro column by Chris Graham
freepress2@ntelos.net
The man who would be mayor slinked out of the city-council chambers quietly through a back door.
He didn’t want to face the group of close to 50 people who had just given the man that he had asked three weeks ago to submit his resignation as city manager a loud 33-second standing ovation.
He’d also passed up the opportunity to publicly address his reasons for instigating the palace coup during the council meeting that had featured some mighty fireworks – the vice mayor accusing him of ugly backroom politicking being only the start of things there.
This isn’t to say that Tim Williams didn’t want to address the situation, of course.
“This is what I have dealt with for the past four years,” Williams told the sympathetic-to-his-cause News Virginian for a story published in today’s edition.
Doug Walker, the soon-to-be-former city manager, “gets what he wants and manipulates council,” Williams said in the interview, apparently referring to the resolution that city council ended up passing by a 3-2 vote, with Williams among those assenting, accepting Walker’s forced resignation under terms that were included in his standard employment contract that give him a severance.
Williams used an interesting phrase – “honor the terms of his contract” – to refer to this apparent manipulation on the part of Walker.
Another curious turn of words from Williams offered criticism on how Vice Mayor Nancy Dowdy read from prepared remarks that included the accusations of backroom politicking. “(A)nd then Nancy, with her script, rips Frank and then Tom joins in. It’s just modes of operation for them. Everything was scripted, everything was prepared.”
For those who don’t regularly attend city-council meetings and work sessions and thus wouldn’t otherwise know this, Williams often reads from prepared remarks – the original authorship of which is often at question.
“Everything was scripted. Everything was prepared.” Considering that Williams met with Walker shortly after the election on May 6 to ask him for his resignation has to make one wonder if Williams is cognizant of the irony of his words. Unless we’re supposed to believe that he hatched the idea all by his little self in the wee hours of Election Night after Frank Lucente had whispered in his ear that he wanted him to be the next mayor.
Speaking of that, Williams finished up his talk with the NV saying that he hoped the city could get “a true man and a true leader that will not divide our city and will work for all of city council. That’s what we need is true leadership.”
Couldn’t have said it better myself, though being a writer, I will try.
Ahem. Pot, meet kettle.
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Chris -
A palace coup implies that a rightful leader is being overthrown from within. This isn’t that.
The City Manager works for the City Council. Just like a CEO works for a Board of Directors. If the Council/Board loses faith in the Manager/CEO it is well within their purview to make a change. That’s not a coup by any definition of the word.
It’s also substantially different (not pot and kettle) when a City Manager is pulling the strings of the people who he is supposed to report to and is clearly aligning himself with factions of a splintered board.
Was this all handled well? No. Is Doug a good guy? Yes. Is he the right guy to be City Manager now? That’s up to the Council, and the majority of them says no.
Well said Chris, I hope this all blows up in their face… my confindence level is heading south quickly! From what I have seen on the televised meetings, the reelected council is really lacking… well I’ll say it… smarts
“Substantially different when (someone) is pulling the strings of people …”
Alex, seriously, this is hilarious. Bruce didn’t even meet with Doug before he fired him. And when Doug called him yesterday to get the word directly from him that he supported the move to push him out, Bruce actually said he would have to call him back to let him know before doing so a few minutes later.
You’re the one who raised the issue of “pulling strings” here, remember.
Chris -
I’m not saying that Bruce isn’t following the lead of Frank and Tim in this case, clearly he is. But that said, Bruce trusts them and they clearly felt that the City Manager needed to be changed. One phone call or meeting, though perhaps polite, wasn’t going to change that opinion.
It’s not unreasonable for them to decide to make that happen as quickly as possible to get things moving in the direction they feel is best.
As I’ve said elsewhere, the City Manager has to have the full faith and confidence of the Council, and it’s clear that Doug no longer had that.
My other point is that there is nothing nefarious or coup-like in the Council changing City Managers, even over nothing more than a difference in philosophy. It happens all the time and that’s what happening here.
My question remains – while certainly providing competent City Management, what was so special about Doug Walker that his firing raises so many alarm bells?
The perception that this wasn’t about good government, but about proving a point. That’s why you have the red flags. That and the off-the-wall statement about “undoing” things. It comes across as petty and vindictive, to say the least.
Is it to late to change my vote?