The following was written in response to a July 7, 2011, editorial in The Oak Ridge Observer. 


Dear Stan,         I beg to differ with some of your premises and conclusions in last week's editorial.  First and foremost, council cannot tell the city manager to replace staff.  We can replace the manager.  We can tell the manager that we have no confidence in particular staff.  We can bring to the manager privately or publicly concerns about staff.  But we cannot direct the manager to hire or fire, move or discipline staff.  One of the outcomes of pulling items from the consent agenda is that sometimes it indicates to the manager and to staff that we do not have confidence in some particular action put forward by staff.       Other things that removing an item from consent agenda might indicate.

• We don't understand the item and need an explanation.  With agendas now arriving Wednesday evening before a Monday meeting, there is frequently not time to review all the items and get answers before the meeting.
• Some of our constituents don't understand an item and have asked us questions and we want the answers to be heard by the public.
• We feel an item may be misconstrued by the public because we know why it's there but the public hasn't been privy to the same information. We want staff to have a chance to avoid distrust by getting to explain.  (I have done that one.)
• We sometimes do feel that an item has been intentionally "hidden" in the consent agenda by staff.  So there.

There are actually other reasons as well.  Since it seems impossible to get real planning and policy discussion meetings scheduled, council kind of has to wade through what's on the agenda and express our several opinions if we want any chance to understand what each other thinks or to have staff get an idea of our several and collective expectations.    It's a bit disingenuous to quarrel with our not getting to all the dozens of items on the workshop agenda.  The first of the three scheduled hours was reassigned by Mr. Watson to avoid a special meeting and have Paul Golan present to council.  Charlie Hensley withdrew his request after talking personally with Mr. Golan so I had no ground to hold the manager to the special meeting.  The reason I seconded Charlie's request was that I really did want the BBB telecast for the public to hear Paul. I also was hoping this might lay the groundwork to start bringing back to council the idea that Oak Ridge cannot continue to imagine that DOE will always be here and the money will always flow freely.  We have got to have a plan for independent survival and thriving as a town. (Talk about your 10,000 foot view.)   The next hour and a half were consumed by a presentation from a set of consultants who had researched needs and proposed reconfigurations for the city library. They could have just given us the giant book report and made copies available at the library for the public.  There was no discussion of the contents that drove the designs for the buildings   That left us with 30 minutes to address the real issues council needed to work on together.  By the way, thanks for reminding me that I need to write out for Mr. Watson what I really asked for which got turned into "roles of the Mayor and City Council."  I asked for a session to discuss how we want to operate as a council.  I do not consider the mayor to be separate from council as the repeated use of the phrase "the Mayor and City Council" implies.  And I really want us to discuss that, too.  In my opinion, all the members of council need to be more involved in and better informed about our relationships with county, other city, and state governments as well as economic development issues and groups.  We need to spread the responsibilities for forming relationships and gathering information and report to each other.  Mr. Beehan was assigned to replace Mr. Haslam on a panel after Mr. Haslam was elected governor.  What if Mr. Beehan were asked by the governor to fill a state role that took him away from Oak Ridge?  Do we even know what all Mr. Beehan is involved with?   So what specifically do you think we might discuss at 10,000 feet?  How about how the city moves into the 21st century? How about the idea of doing an analysis of the city demographics and the city's assets and engaging a knowledgeable facilitator to lead us through who does Oak Ridge want to be in 50 years and what is possible/probable?   Stan, we have had a manager with a backbone for only 1 short year.  We have inspired him to retire some people and get us some new ones.  Things are better.  Things are still not great and there are a few members of city staff who still think it appropriate to set the agenda for Oak Ridge themselves.  We have had a do nothing unless Tom Beehan does it council because Tom had the 4 votes.  I challenge council to move Oak Ridge beyond being a dependent of DOE and an adjunct to the federal agenda.  We have a CVB that is still trying to sell the Atom Bomb!  Our history is interesting and important but it is not and cannot be all this town is.