“It's time for them to have measurable objectives.” Yes!! Excellent, Brent, thank you. And *not* the measurable objectives they already seem to have, which are:
1 enforcing Sanctuary City rules that do nothing for taxpayers
Remember, in the Liberal universe and mindset, its intentions that count, not results. Vague ideas and platitudes, are just warm and fuzzy feel good expressions, that for those who are not driven by profits and results, seem to satisfy their purpose for existence. In the real business world, if you don’t produce, build or create, you fail, go out of business, or fired. It’s obvious that too many public “Servants “ are over compensated and under produce.
Quantifiable objectives, performance metrics and accountability are essential to running a successful private business. The attraction of government employment is obscene over compensation without accountability. My experience in working at publically funded institutions (NASA JPL CalTech) vs private companies is a stark contrast of work ethic and accountability vs a culture of entitlement, arrogence and laziness. Don't expect that public sector employees will ever submit to quantifiable performance standards, it is antithetical to the culture.
After reading your column, Brent, which lays out very well the incredible salaries and benefits that the city administrator and assistant city administrator are raking in, one can only wonder if it is possible for Santa Barbara to continue to function much longer at this pace of obscene government salaries. The really frustrating part is that once they leave this job without accomplishing anything positive for our town, they will still be handsomely rewarded by taxpayer money. This travesty has obviously been going on for years and years but has reached new highs,to the point where an eventual collapse seems inevitable. It is not a matter of "if" it will happen but "when".
District elections and term limits produced successive waves of know-nothing and do-nothing city council members.
Which in turn increased the power of city staff and the city administrator. Today's shabby, disconnected governance model has nothing to do with the intent of our original founding documents that support self-governance. Instead it is a model for do nothing corporate dysfunction.
How do we reverse this race to the bottom?
Undo all recent "election reform" measure inflicted by the Democrat party over the past several decades. Ban all government employee unions. Being an elected official is a civic duty; not a protected right with built-in lifetime privileges.
Back to basics. One-day elections, paper ballots, automatic recusal if one takes money or campaign help from any party with future interests with the city. Eliminate district elections and term limits.
Voters need to re-empower themselves before this current one-sided partisan mess Stockholm Syndrome's the life out of our one last noble experiment in representative government. Or this current devolution will finally and thoroughly be corrupted forever.
If we cannot respond with local participatory vigor as voters, heaven help us at the national level. "No Kings" in fact was an indictment of our current Democrat party and government employee union take-over of every level of our own local governments.
Your idea of making government officials Accountable by delineating, specific yearly goals, and then reviewing the accomplishments is laudable. Good luck getting any of them to do it. All they do is find ways to not be held accountable. Deflection and obfuscation are their best tricks.
Brent, the issue is not the salary, but the measurable short and long value that this provides for our investment. I am a student of J. Edwards Deming who espouses those same principles, all based on measurable results, in his quality movement. Well written!
These ‘goals’ are shocking. Anyone who has ever worked in a professional environment (most for a lower paycheck than the one mentioned here) knows that goals have to be ‘SMART’. Specific, measurable, achieve able, realistic and time-dependent.
Something is rotten at the top end of SB city government.
Sounds like a boondoggle to me, Brent. Thanks for bringing up the hiring of a Deputy City Administrator assistant to provide "help" for "Ms. Magoo." As Gary Smythe describes herein the position as a "just a warm and fuzzy feel-good expressions." Nearly the entire SB City Government exists on a warm and fuzzy foundation of feelings. Their titles present a guessing game as to what individuals might actually do. These fancy titles exhibit a vague responsibility as to their reason for a big-dollar existence. As an engineer, there was never a question as for my existence when working at a company. And I was certain my existence could always be measured; gauged by providing a portion of the company dollar income. A so-called City Administrator is clearly one of those city government positions that can continue for eons. And without showing any beneficial results, always coming up with an excuse of blaming the general public for her not being able to fulfill some obligation(s) Ms. Magoo accepted. The City of Santa Barbara continues to Go Wild!
As described at the City's website provided: "The City of Santa Barbara's Sustainability & Resilience Department supports a sustainable, healthy, and safe Santa Barbara through building energy efficiency and renewable energy, reducing City-wide greenhouse gas emissions, recycling, composting, keeping our City clean from litter and waste, and implementing creek restoration and water quality improvement efforts.
Great example of BS. There are already people covering these things listed. Do we need someone to "watch" what others are already doing? I say BOONDOGGLE!
One day in the late 1960's, an office mate and engineer named Sy Horowitz, and I walked over to a place during lunchtime using a pathway under the 405 Freeway. The place we frequented was FedMart which later Price Club in Van Nuys located in the San Fernando Valley. As if it was yesterday, I can recall Sy's conversation about how he felt there were too many services being created in the country. Sy was product oriented and believed more in making tangible things which he would describe as products. Sy believed you had a purpose in life when physically or mentally did something that could be sold as being useful. Sy's comments always stuck with me. When Sy said something, I listened. Sy graduated from Penn State where the world's earliest digital computer was developed in the 1950's. Sy went on to work at Univac which he told me many fascinating stories about the computer designers and the development and installation of these early vacuum tube computers.
Many of us believe all the layers of government from City to Federal are comprised of mostly people being non-producers of anything tangible. Simply stated, government is the ideal place for someone that can't do anything productive. It's the place to be, such as Kamala Harris, where one can get away with looking good and knowing nothing. I'm reminded of Ann's sister working for the County of San Luis Obispo stating she never answered her phone during the week and would only listen to the calls on Friday and delete most of them. There's an incredible amount of all-government waste. I rarely could get a response from the City of SB when it came to safety issues. I'm a safety nut.
During the time when I was sharing an office with Sy, his wife divorced him and Sy kept his two boys. Sy was very depressed during this time. His wife wanted to be an assistant writer in Hollywood and so she left the marriage. One of his boys is now more known as Scott "Doc' Horowitz (retired) which became an astronaut piloting four Space Shuttle missions.
Do we work for the city, or does the city work for us.
Are we their permanent deep pockets, while they serve only their own personal empire building?
Is turning over the entire city for ever-expanding "affordable" housing at a net revenue loss good because it gets them votes? Or is it good for the quality of life of current taxpaying residents.
_____1) Begin work improving our organizational culture;
(What does that even mean?) Define "begin"," improving" and "organizational culture". What specific issues and goals drive this entire mandate? How is "improvement" measured? What are essential city services, what are discretionary services to add only on the provision of supplemental funding?
_____2) focus on State Street and downtown revitalization;
Define "focus" and revitalization" - for retail sales tax generation, for re-purposing city owned property; for what segment of the local population, for what net benefit; what measures success or failure; or does this also enhance the wider tourism industry?
_____3) stabilize the city’s finances;
What are the primary drivers that de-stabilize city finances? Specifics, projections and pro formas please. Expenses and revenues get equal detailed scrutiny, but include the necessary proviso no new taxes.
_____4) focus on the housing and homelessness crisis.
During her time on the job both PATH and FARO proved to be utter failures, creating more community blight. Both lost directors forcing the city to take over and/or intervene in both property ownership and operations. State Street "revitalization" goes no where if it re-creates the former vagrant gauntlet. Drop the word "crisis" from any city proposal.
***Recognize internal "labor peace" will be the most consequential driver in the success or failure of every single one of these goal. How will this unwritten demand for internal labor peace, be confronted?
Brent- Thank you for laying out the numbers, depressing as hell. The phrase "circling the drain" comes to mind when I think about the future of our city.
While I have reservations about AI, I can see an application where it could run this city infinitely more efficiently and layout a comprehensive plan to accomplish goals.
McAdoo is being paid huge money to articulate her vision...not results. No doubt, the warm bodies occupying space in City Hall would vehemently object alongside their union buddies (also a good sign).
it would be instructive...and potentially entertaining...for someone in the private sector familiar w/ AI to concurrently operate a shadow city government utilizing the objectives stated by McAdoo and compare results...and costs. No harm. No foul. I can't imagine it would cost very much, but I believe there aren't plenty of us who would throw in a few bucks to experiment with such a program? Would not the half million dollars the City Council gave to the illegal alien community been better used for that purpose?
If AI can replace workers…it does...why not replace the overpaid and over pensioned bureaucrats? Not only would we actually get results, I imagine it would be dramatically more efficient and economical. Also, using that same platform to compare each City department from public works, permitting, maintenance, etc., with the private sector for those same functions.
About a million dollars out the door between these two — my! That’s some incredible savings. I predict the deputy’s big move will be recommending hiring someone to do whatever it was she was going to do that he was going to do.
I don't want to be overly pessimistic about this but very specific measurable outcomes will not fix govt. Unlike the private sector where profit is the universal measurement for success, there is nothing even remotely like that in the public sector. What many people don't understand (I know because I spent 5 years as an administrator in the public sector) is that government is systemically unable to succeed in terms of efficiency and great cost-effective outcomes. It never has and never will.
“It's time for them to have measurable objectives.” Yes!! Excellent, Brent, thank you. And *not* the measurable objectives they already seem to have, which are:
1 enforcing Sanctuary City rules that do nothing for taxpayers
2 enhancing their own living standard
3 pleasing the Sacramento D powers
4 blocking oil production
5 making sure no criminal is kept in jail
Remember, in the Liberal universe and mindset, its intentions that count, not results. Vague ideas and platitudes, are just warm and fuzzy feel good expressions, that for those who are not driven by profits and results, seem to satisfy their purpose for existence. In the real business world, if you don’t produce, build or create, you fail, go out of business, or fired. It’s obvious that too many public “Servants “ are over compensated and under produce.
Quantifiable objectives, performance metrics and accountability are essential to running a successful private business. The attraction of government employment is obscene over compensation without accountability. My experience in working at publically funded institutions (NASA JPL CalTech) vs private companies is a stark contrast of work ethic and accountability vs a culture of entitlement, arrogence and laziness. Don't expect that public sector employees will ever submit to quantifiable performance standards, it is antithetical to the culture.
After reading your column, Brent, which lays out very well the incredible salaries and benefits that the city administrator and assistant city administrator are raking in, one can only wonder if it is possible for Santa Barbara to continue to function much longer at this pace of obscene government salaries. The really frustrating part is that once they leave this job without accomplishing anything positive for our town, they will still be handsomely rewarded by taxpayer money. This travesty has obviously been going on for years and years but has reached new highs,to the point where an eventual collapse seems inevitable. It is not a matter of "if" it will happen but "when".
Yep.
District elections and term limits produced successive waves of know-nothing and do-nothing city council members.
Which in turn increased the power of city staff and the city administrator. Today's shabby, disconnected governance model has nothing to do with the intent of our original founding documents that support self-governance. Instead it is a model for do nothing corporate dysfunction.
How do we reverse this race to the bottom?
Undo all recent "election reform" measure inflicted by the Democrat party over the past several decades. Ban all government employee unions. Being an elected official is a civic duty; not a protected right with built-in lifetime privileges.
Back to basics. One-day elections, paper ballots, automatic recusal if one takes money or campaign help from any party with future interests with the city. Eliminate district elections and term limits.
Voters need to re-empower themselves before this current one-sided partisan mess Stockholm Syndrome's the life out of our one last noble experiment in representative government. Or this current devolution will finally and thoroughly be corrupted forever.
If we cannot respond with local participatory vigor as voters, heaven help us at the national level. "No Kings" in fact was an indictment of our current Democrat party and government employee union take-over of every level of our own local governments.
Your idea of making government officials Accountable by delineating, specific yearly goals, and then reviewing the accomplishments is laudable. Good luck getting any of them to do it. All they do is find ways to not be held accountable. Deflection and obfuscation are their best tricks.
When city employee unions and their badly disguised PACs drive city council elections these days, what should one expect to happen?
When yard signs pop up declaring "Teachers (*unions) support ....... XYZ", what should one expect to happen.
When leading local media 100% supports the one-party status quo and allows no dissent, what should one expect to happen?
Brent, the issue is not the salary, but the measurable short and long value that this provides for our investment. I am a student of J. Edwards Deming who espouses those same principles, all based on measurable results, in his quality movement. Well written!
These ‘goals’ are shocking. Anyone who has ever worked in a professional environment (most for a lower paycheck than the one mentioned here) knows that goals have to be ‘SMART’. Specific, measurable, achieve able, realistic and time-dependent.
Something is rotten at the top end of SB city government.
Sounds like a boondoggle to me, Brent. Thanks for bringing up the hiring of a Deputy City Administrator assistant to provide "help" for "Ms. Magoo." As Gary Smythe describes herein the position as a "just a warm and fuzzy feel-good expressions." Nearly the entire SB City Government exists on a warm and fuzzy foundation of feelings. Their titles present a guessing game as to what individuals might actually do. These fancy titles exhibit a vague responsibility as to their reason for a big-dollar existence. As an engineer, there was never a question as for my existence when working at a company. And I was certain my existence could always be measured; gauged by providing a portion of the company dollar income. A so-called City Administrator is clearly one of those city government positions that can continue for eons. And without showing any beneficial results, always coming up with an excuse of blaming the general public for her not being able to fulfill some obligation(s) Ms. Magoo accepted. The City of Santa Barbara continues to Go Wild!
Case in point: City's Department of Sustainability and Resilience.
https://sustainability.santabarbaraca.gov
As described at the City's website provided: "The City of Santa Barbara's Sustainability & Resilience Department supports a sustainable, healthy, and safe Santa Barbara through building energy efficiency and renewable energy, reducing City-wide greenhouse gas emissions, recycling, composting, keeping our City clean from litter and waste, and implementing creek restoration and water quality improvement efforts.
Great example of BS. There are already people covering these things listed. Do we need someone to "watch" what others are already doing? I say BOONDOGGLE!
One day in the late 1960's, an office mate and engineer named Sy Horowitz, and I walked over to a place during lunchtime using a pathway under the 405 Freeway. The place we frequented was FedMart which later Price Club in Van Nuys located in the San Fernando Valley. As if it was yesterday, I can recall Sy's conversation about how he felt there were too many services being created in the country. Sy was product oriented and believed more in making tangible things which he would describe as products. Sy believed you had a purpose in life when physically or mentally did something that could be sold as being useful. Sy's comments always stuck with me. When Sy said something, I listened. Sy graduated from Penn State where the world's earliest digital computer was developed in the 1950's. Sy went on to work at Univac which he told me many fascinating stories about the computer designers and the development and installation of these early vacuum tube computers.
Many of us believe all the layers of government from City to Federal are comprised of mostly people being non-producers of anything tangible. Simply stated, government is the ideal place for someone that can't do anything productive. It's the place to be, such as Kamala Harris, where one can get away with looking good and knowing nothing. I'm reminded of Ann's sister working for the County of San Luis Obispo stating she never answered her phone during the week and would only listen to the calls on Friday and delete most of them. There's an incredible amount of all-government waste. I rarely could get a response from the City of SB when it came to safety issues. I'm a safety nut.
During the time when I was sharing an office with Sy, his wife divorced him and Sy kept his two boys. Sy was very depressed during this time. His wife wanted to be an assistant writer in Hollywood and so she left the marriage. One of his boys is now more known as Scott "Doc' Horowitz (retired) which became an astronaut piloting four Space Shuttle missions.
I agree with you that there should be clear objectives and accountability. And the four-point objectives you listed to grossly too vague.
But I'm curious if those overly simplified four objectives - taken from a noozhawk interview -actually capture the Administrator's duties?
Either way, accountability in this city seems to be in short supply.
Do we work for the city, or does the city work for us.
Are we their permanent deep pockets, while they serve only their own personal empire building?
Is turning over the entire city for ever-expanding "affordable" housing at a net revenue loss good because it gets them votes? Or is it good for the quality of life of current taxpaying residents.
_____1) Begin work improving our organizational culture;
(What does that even mean?) Define "begin"," improving" and "organizational culture". What specific issues and goals drive this entire mandate? How is "improvement" measured? What are essential city services, what are discretionary services to add only on the provision of supplemental funding?
_____2) focus on State Street and downtown revitalization;
Define "focus" and revitalization" - for retail sales tax generation, for re-purposing city owned property; for what segment of the local population, for what net benefit; what measures success or failure; or does this also enhance the wider tourism industry?
_____3) stabilize the city’s finances;
What are the primary drivers that de-stabilize city finances? Specifics, projections and pro formas please. Expenses and revenues get equal detailed scrutiny, but include the necessary proviso no new taxes.
_____4) focus on the housing and homelessness crisis.
During her time on the job both PATH and FARO proved to be utter failures, creating more community blight. Both lost directors forcing the city to take over and/or intervene in both property ownership and operations. State Street "revitalization" goes no where if it re-creates the former vagrant gauntlet. Drop the word "crisis" from any city proposal.
***Recognize internal "labor peace" will be the most consequential driver in the success or failure of every single one of these goal. How will this unwritten demand for internal labor peace, be confronted?
Yes, what does "improve the organizational culture" mean ??? An organization is a thing, basically, and a culture is behaviors......
I think it means ... how to improve staff morale by giving them more money.
It's the answer to every problem!
Brent- Thank you for laying out the numbers, depressing as hell. The phrase "circling the drain" comes to mind when I think about the future of our city.
While I have reservations about AI, I can see an application where it could run this city infinitely more efficiently and layout a comprehensive plan to accomplish goals.
McAdoo is being paid huge money to articulate her vision...not results. No doubt, the warm bodies occupying space in City Hall would vehemently object alongside their union buddies (also a good sign).
it would be instructive...and potentially entertaining...for someone in the private sector familiar w/ AI to concurrently operate a shadow city government utilizing the objectives stated by McAdoo and compare results...and costs. No harm. No foul. I can't imagine it would cost very much, but I believe there aren't plenty of us who would throw in a few bucks to experiment with such a program? Would not the half million dollars the City Council gave to the illegal alien community been better used for that purpose?
If AI can replace workers…it does...why not replace the overpaid and over pensioned bureaucrats? Not only would we actually get results, I imagine it would be dramatically more efficient and economical. Also, using that same platform to compare each City department from public works, permitting, maintenance, etc., with the private sector for those same functions.
Why do you think Christ is irrelevant to Christmas TVW?
About a million dollars out the door between these two — my! That’s some incredible savings. I predict the deputy’s big move will be recommending hiring someone to do whatever it was she was going to do that he was going to do.
I don't want to be overly pessimistic about this but very specific measurable outcomes will not fix govt. Unlike the private sector where profit is the universal measurement for success, there is nothing even remotely like that in the public sector. What many people don't understand (I know because I spent 5 years as an administrator in the public sector) is that government is systemically unable to succeed in terms of efficiency and great cost-effective outcomes. It never has and never will.