Opinion

Another unfortunate decision

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Practically everyone in this region knows that the McCook City Council is under fire again for a controversial decision they made. We've had more than a few of those in recent years.

All of us remember the air base purchase, some of us remember the Council's refusal to allow McCook Community College to build a parking lot adjacent to the campus (although they did revisit that issue and changed their mind) and most, if not all of us, will long remember this most recent decision to re-hire John Bingham as our City Manager. This rehiring has created a firestorm of criticism for those council members who voted in the affirmative, as well it should.

Today's column is not about John Bingham. I don't know him personally and I've never had any professional dealings with him either. I know some who are protesting his rehiring are doing so from either a personal or professional basis, based on their involvement and experience with him but I've had neither. Some of you like him, some of you don't. I also don't think it's important why he left the same post in Damascus, Ore., after only a month on the job. His resignation there has absolutely nothing to do with his being rehired here.

No, this isn't about the City Manager. It's about the Council who rehired him. For a City Council to be effective anywhere, it must have the support of the people it represents, just like a police department. If people come to mistrust the actions or motives of their police department, the department will quickly become ineffective because a police department cannot survive without the good will and support of the people it represents. The difference here is that most police departments are staffed via civil service requirements, all the way up to the Chief of Police, who is almost never an elected official.

The City Council, on the other hand, is completely made up of elected officials. Officials who should be representing our best interests and who should not only be working by the letter of the law but also by the spirit of the law. We have seen much controversy among elected officials all over the country when these two concepts run head-on into each other. How many elected officials have we heard proclaim that they "didn't violate any laws" but the public knew they had violated their trust? I'm not an attorney so I'm not sure how a court would interpret "open meeting" laws and the other legal questions that have been raised recently. Again, that's not the concern of this column.

I want to talk about common sense. I want to talk about doing the right thing. I want to talk about following proper procedure, even when not doing so may be within the law. I want to talk about not only being responsive to the people our Council serves but respecting the people they serve as well. It's my sincere belief that the current City Council has failed to live up to any of these reasonable expectations.

John Bingham resigned as city manager of McCook and took another position elsewhere. When one resigns and becomes employed somewhere else, that means he no longer works here. So why wouldn't the council expect citizens to be upset when he was rehired without going through an application process as the other applicants had to do, upset when he signed a contract before the contract was voted on by the Council, and upset when he was reinstated to his old job with a raise, moving expenses, and the return of all accumulated sick leave. The sick leave issue is one I haven't seen raised yet publicly but everyone I've ever known who left one employ for another cashed in their sick days as income before leaving. I'm curious to know how the Council handled this.

I talked to a friend the other day who formerly taught for Mayor Berry at the McCook Junior High School and he was amazed that Mr. Bingham was rehired in the way that he was. He told me that Mr. Berry, the Junior High principal, was a stickler for going "by the book" on everything administrative that occurred at the school. The "book" certainly wasn't gone by in this rehiring.

I asked a prominent businessman what he thought about the way the whole thing was handled and he thought it was a slap in the face to the citizens of McCook. From an employer's‚ perspective he told me he certainly understood employees of his who thought they could better themselves by taking another job and that he always wished them well. On occasion, however, the attractive new job turned out to be not so attractive and they sometimes return to him asking for their old job back. He said he always handles this situation the same way. He and the former employee sit down and have a real heart-to-heart talk about working in general and working for him in particular. After that talk, if he is inclined to rehire them, he certainly does not give them a raise. In fact, he doesn't rehire them at the rate they were making when they left. They are treated as a new employee and hired at the bottom scale for that particular job. He says that's just good business. It certainly sounds that way to me.

But our Council chose to forego common sense, proper procedure, and good business habits by hiring Mr. Bingham back literally "behind the backs" of the people they supposedly represent: the citizens of McCook. I heard a fellow say the other day that this "controversy" would end up just like every other controversy ends up around here. People will complain about it for a while, nobody will do anything about it, and before long it will be just a memory in the minds of most. So, the rest is up to the citizens of McCook. Attend the next City Council meeting and let your thoughts be heard. If there's legal action that might be taken, then band together as a common group and seek remedy in the courts.

And, most importantly, never forget what so many politicians often forget: We don't work for them, they work for us. We're the employer, they're the employees. We hired them, we can fire them. So when it's time for current Council members to run again for office, go to the ballot box and cast your vote in favor or against. There is a clear message to everyone who gets re-elected that the people agree with the job they're doing. Or vice versa.

In the end, it's not up to them. It's up to us.

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