The Albany City Commission had a busy day yesterday. Dealing with the aftermath of the Don Buie debacle, they decided it was time to save the taxpayers $15,000 and not hire a headhunter to find a replacement downtown manager. In addition, Commission Roger Marietta proposed amending ADICA’s charter so that board members can be removed by a simple vote of the city commission.
Yep, a busy day indeed. But it wasn’t all good.
First, I have to say I’m pleased with Commissioner Marietta’s proposed amendment to ADICA’s charter. With the mess involving Lajuanna Woods and ADICA’s inactivity makes it obvious that something is needed. Since no one seems to know how to convene the ethics committee, this seems the only way to get rid of “unethical and wrong” board members.
The commission also decided to have Al Lott direct the search for a new downtown manager instead of dropping a pile of money on a headhunter. Commissioner Marietta told WALB that this way, Lott will be held responsible since he hires the new downtown manager. Of course, he was responsible before, but that’s beside the point. What is important is that a new downtown manager will have a specialty. Has that even been discussed? Getting the wrong specialty will be almost as disastrous as Buie-gate has been.
Of course, amid all this actual business, Mayor Willie Adams decided to hold a vote of confidence. He passed out ballots for all the city commissioners and asked them to vote on whether he should resign or not. They all voted no.
Wow. Big deal.
Adams has to understand that it’s not the commissioner’s confidence he needs, but the people’s. Frankly, I think he needs to go, but not by resignation…he needs to be voted out. But the commissioners get one vote each when Adams runs for re-election, the people of Albany get all the rest. So, who’s confidence is most important?
Is the mayor for real? Who cares what the commissioners think. It’s the public that has no faith in his leadership. Besides the public has no confidence in the commissioners because they just sit around letting the Mayor speak out turn, trying to defend Mr. Lott actions in making poor decisions. As I see it Adams and Lott have alot in common, poor leaders, making poor decisions and are quick to point their fingers at others, which we know is all a cover up. They do not want to be held accountable for their own mistakes. Hello !!! has anyone every told them no one is perfect, so Adams and Lott let’s be men that God would be proud of and admit your wrong doings and get over it.
Election time can not come to soon for me. Albany needs a REAL change…..
In all of the discussions of Mr. Lott I think we might be losing sight of something very important. He follows the COMMISSION’s lead. He serves at their pleasure. At anytime they are not happy with his performance they can terminate him.
The commission started the relationship with the Slavin(forgive me if I’ve spelled it wrong) Group when they hired him. Why couldn’t they have saved the city money then and had the HR department do the search?
Nothing Mr. Lott does is his sole decision, it all goes back to the commission. If we are unhappy with the decisions he makes, we need to make the commission answer from them.
Has there been any description of what the Downtown Manager is supposed to accomplish? What are the critical skillsets? City planner, developer, finance, marketer, party planner, organizer, code writer?
Since these are private properties that are targeted for redevelopment, has anyone asked the private sector what is needed? Has anyone asked the private sector anything?
Aside from the obvious problems, was Don Buie accomplishing the goals that the city had for that office? What were they? Are they different today?
The overhead for that newly created office has to be around $200,000 per year. Can some of the roles be accomplished by existing departments and local companies… Economic Development Commission (B2B downtown promotion), Convention and Visitors Bureau – CVB (marketing downtown to visitors-tourists), Downtown Merchants Association (organising downtown events), Engineering/Project management (review budgets and bids), accounting (the numbers)…rather than creating a permanent overhead.
Also, the city departments and a reconstituted ADICA board and the city manager’s office and an outside CPA and the private property owner and a qualified watchdog committee (keep going)…can surely get together and watch the money. We’ve learned to not entrust that to one person, so who will do all the reviews anyway?
My point is: $200K is a lot of tax dollars to recover and maybe we are just adding confusion and putting control of our future again into the hands of an unknown … and what value will that add today? If a manager is desired, are the immediate skillsets needed different from the long-term needs? And will we really get a top gun to come to this market for what is a politically charged, relatively small project for much less money than they would earn in the private sector, certainly once the economy kicked in again?
I would suggest rethinking this downtown manager role ….and how about getting the private sector to the table? These are, after all, privately owned properties.
Or are we still waiting for the “National Developer” from California who is reported to be a lock to do a major development in Albany, but has never even been to this city and probably couldn’t find it on a map. That’s not how that world works, and if by chance it does, there goes the money leaving the market again.
Mr. Studl, you make a great deal of sense. Over the last few decades, Albany/Dougherty County has fallen into finding experts. With experts defined as being from out of town and carrying a briefcase. There will always be a small skills set that might not available to you but by and large most positions could be filled with someone from one of the local governments.
$200,000/year is probably the ad valorem taxes from 150-200 modest homes in Albany. It’s 5 or 6 new policemen. 5 or 6 cops walking around the neighborhoods around the downtown, or any neighborhood, will make a difference…so would a tax reduction for lower -income seniors who can’t afford their homes…point is, $200k is a lot of money. What’s the return? And can the result be accomplished better with fewer taxpayer dollars?
Mr. Studl I like your idea a lot. There are many intelligent people who work for the city. They know the city, it’s people and have invaluable insight into our needs, strengths and weaknesses. Ms. Glover of the Chamber of Commerce would be a welcome addition to planning. I have no personal knowledge of her, but have heard her speak several times and I like her determined, common sense approach to strategic planning.
I sincerely hope we can get our commission and mayor to look at common sense approaches such as this to change the course of our city.
“The overhead for that newly created office has to be around $200,000 per year. Can some of the roles be accomplished by existing departments and local companies…”
I agree. Let’s eliminate the downtown manager’s position.
Without hearing COMPELLING justification otherwise including seeing a calculation of the return on taxpayer investment, I agree fully. We don’t really need a newly created office of “downtown manager.” We sure don’t need another political or boardroom syncophant. We have all the professional talent here in town and in places like the Chamber and EDC and CVB and private contractors AND, believe it or not, the private property owners just might add some value!
Further, I don’t have my financial calculator or know the exact bond terms, but I estimate that $200,000/year (and that always gets bigger) pays back almost half the $6M bond (at least $2.5M). Heck, starting with the present model, we just picked up enough money to pay back half the bond. Of course, we don’t want to use existing taxpayer money, but if we use our noodles, we can find ways to make this whole thing work.
They’re very good at ignoring elephants in the room. All they had to do with ADICA is pass a resolution denying ADICA all funds until they institute legal action to recover the funds from Woods, Buie and Washington.
They didn’t. They won’t. It’s all PR, just like Langstaff and Marietta’s letter to ADICA “asking” them to get the money back.
RE: DOWNTOWN MANAGER
News, of sorts, I guess: At yesterday’s ADICA board meeting, I publicly asked the board to reconsider hiring another downtown manager and pointed out the $200,000 per year cost to maintain that office. I asked that the board and city use the high-quality resources already at hand rather than engage another expensive unknown.
After the ADICA board meeting Asst. City Manager and Interim ADICA CEO James Taylor told me that the city commission had AUTHORIZED City Manager Alfred Lott to conduct a search for a new downtown manager directly rather than engage a headhunter, but that did not mean that Mr. Lott was actually presently seeking a replacement.
I took that to mean that he was not seeking a replacement at this time, although I cannot be sure I understood what was meant.
Just trying to keep $200,000 per year in the coffers.
Let’s be blunt. Regardless of the terminology used, the only reason a search hasn’t been started is probably because they haven’t gotten a chance yet.
The belief in City Hall is that we must have a downtown manager, so we’re going to get one…whether we need him or not.
I have no basis to disagree with your perception of mindset…although I do hope that IF that office adds no real value to the process after a cost/benefit review with an eye to using existing resources, that it be eliminated.
I would revisit a number of assumptions.
FRANKLY, I WOULD QUESTION WHY THIS PROCESS REPORTS TO THE CITY MANAGER’S OFFICE IN THE FIRST PLACE. WHAT EXPERIENCE DOES THAT OFFICE HAVE IN DOWNTOWN REDEVELOPMENT OR ANY REDEVELOPMENT MATTERS? WHAT EXPERIENCE DO THE ADICA BOARD MEMBERS HAVE ON THAT ISSUE OR FINANCE OR PROJECT MANAGEMENT OR MUCH OF ANYTHING RELATED. MOST OF THE ABOVE ARE GOOD PEOPLE, BUT WHERE IS THE EXPERTISE? IF IT WERE THERE, I’M NOT SO SURE WE WOULD EVEN BE DISCUSSING A DOWNTOWN MANAGER AT THIS PARTICULAR PROJECT INITIATION TIME. MAYBE LATER, BUT THAT IS A DIFFERENT SKILL REQUIREMENT AND PROBABLY A LOWER PAY LEVEL.
Note to any City Commissioner reading this exchange. As far as I know there is only one Lawyer- Profesional Developer (with a lot of “skin in the game”) with any interest in what’s going on with ADICA. Be smart, listen to this guy.