BRIEFLY NOTED - Mitt Romney has been criticized by his competitors for expressing a willingness to fire underperforming persons or organizations.[link]
I see it another way: bring Mitt to Los Angeles and let him fire away.
What does it take to fire an appointee, manager or any other employee in this town?
Apparently it’s OK to tolerate sexual harassment, bribery, incompetence, and just questionable practices in general.
Sordid events involving bribery and misuse of funds; [link] failure to disclose important financial information affecting the city’s future cash flows, [link] allowing the accumulation of $270 million in uncollected fees, [link] and not performing even the most basic reviews the result of which cost the city hundreds of thousands of dollars due to fraud [link] are apparently not grounds for dismissing or demoting general managers.
As bad as all of that is, there is one thing worse: the public’s tolerance of our elected officials’ lack of response to these matters.
Quite frankly, 90% of the voting age population needs to be fired from the city for negligence. Many of the illegal immigrants would make more responsible citizens.
What does it take to awaken people?
I have met intelligent individuals, including some in my own profession, who are clueless about local government and have no desire to at least become unclueless (new word for 2012).
The rest of us may as well be pushing a boulder uphill.
How long before we tire of it?
And beware – when boulders roll backwards, they hurt whoever is in the way.
(Paul Hatfield is a CPA and serves as Treasurer for the Neighborhood Council Valley Village. He blogs at Village to Village, contributes to CityWatch and can be reached at: [email protected]) –cw
Tags: Paul Hatfield, Mitt Romney, firing, getting fired, I like to fire people, Los Angeles, sexual harassment, bribery
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 4
Pub: Jan 13, 2012
