It's not all about politics

The city council ripped Mayor Joe B. McNeal the other night for his work hours. McNeal was clearly furious and contended he puts in a full day of work every day.

He saw it as a political move in an election year.

In part, the timing of the public condemnation of the mayor may have been due to the upcoming elections, certainly not a single member of the council will be voting for him and they all clearly hope he'll be defeated, but the private complaints of the council about his work habits have been longstanding and growing.

Does the mayor work a full 40-hour week? It's hard to say. If you include all the evenings and weekends when he's out "showing the flag" and politicking, probably. But the council wants to see 40 hours of administrative work.

Joe spends a lot of time kissing babies, shaking hands, and getting his picture taken. But it's often difficult to find him in his office first thing in the morning, and in particular later in the afternoon. It's not unusual for the front office staff to contend they're not sure where he is. So the council's complaints have some solid validity, even if the timing is a little political.

In the old days, the mayor's job wasn't much more than a part-time position. But over the last decade, as the city has grown, it has become more and more a position that requires not only the PR element (which Joe does quite well), but increasingly has become a full-time administrative job (which Joe doesn't do very well).

It doesn't help that Joe refuses to ever use a computer to deal with the daily e-mail communications that city department heads and other members of the city government use constantly to keep each other informed. Without that, city employees are relegated to direct contact with the mayor to resolve issues. Joe relies and thrives on direct personal contact, but when city employees can't find him, things get delayed. If he'd ever enter the 21st century and learn how to use a computer, some of the complaints about not being able to find him might go away.

Don't write this off as "just politics." The job has never been well defined, so eventually, the council is going to have to come up with a stronger definition of what is expected of a mayor, but accessibility for city administrative affairs has to be at the top of the list.

-- Kelly Everitt