September 1st, 2010 06:21pm
Linda Grist Cunningham
More on this tomorrow, but a quick update. Carl Wasco, Bill Robertson, Joe Sosnowski and Frank Beach spent almost two hours with the Rockford Register Star Editorial Board this afternoon. They’d come straight to the News Tower from a meeting with Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey.
The Editorial Board did not start easily, due in some part to the fact that I’m not particularly tolerant of code-worded political speech, and we were getting a lot of carefully parsed answers from the four.
Then somewhere 30 or 40 minutes into it, they exchanged their ambiguous word choices for a passionate discussion of the tasks ahead for them and the city as they strive to do the right thing for the community.
No doubt in my mind that Wasco, Robertson and Beach understand the horror show of choices facing city council as it cuts more than $5 million from today’s budget. And, they clearly know the impossibility of balancing the budget with nips and tucks that spare people.
It’s the first time in my two decades of watching Rockford city council that I actually saw real, powerful, shared leadership potential among the aldermen. That is a very, very good thing.
Now is the time for the aldermen to step forward and say publicly what they said to the Editorial Board: Everyone has to come back to the table. The cuts we have to make will include police and fire and other kinds of outsourcing and restructuring. The damage can be mitigated by good faith negotiating — and by changing the players at the table.
(Changing the players was a bit of code for replacing the city’s negotiating team and the fire union team among others.)
It’s unfortunate that Julia Scott-Valdez became the rally cry for this newborn aldermanic leadership. She didn’t deserve to be used by the mayor and the alderman as the rope in their tug-of-war over who was going to run the city: the mayor or the council.
That is an embarrassing disservice to her and she deserves apologies from the aldermen and from the mayor.
If these four aldermen along with the others who signed the letter to the editor follow through with nurturing their new-found leadership, it’s likely to mean confrontations between the council and the mayor over who is in charge.
Mayor Morrissey has come a long way over the past couple years in managing his instinctive “my way or highway, and I don’t suffer fools well” approach to things. But he lets his frustrations at the slow political processes make him crazy and he’ll still say things that demean those who don’t move or think as fast or as smartly as he would like them to.
It won’t be an easy relationship, this new model of Rockford government in which the aldermen demand a controlling role. Not with a mayor as focused and headstrong as this one.
But, far from coming out of that Editorial Board wondering just how bad things can get, I came away thinking: Hey, this could be really good.
September 1st, 2010 01:32pm
Linda Grist Cunningham
Two or three Rockford aldermen are headed to the News Tower shortly to tell me and Editorial Page Editor Wally Haas why we’re off-base in our support for the appointment of Julia Scott-Valdez as the city’s human resources director.
Wally and I apparently stepped on some toes yesterday when we wrote blog posts saying city council should approve the promotion and get on with it. Full disclosure:We didn’t compare notes, or even have a conversation, before the posts were written. I was as surprised to see what he had written as he was to see mine.
Other than Carl Wasco, who made the contact with Wally this morning, I’m not sure who else is showing up. Wasco told Wally that aldermen had written a letter and they wanted to share it with us — and tell us their side of the story.
Alderman Joe Sosnowski posted the letter below to his Facebook page yesterday, so maybe this is what it’s all about.
We’ll update as soon as we know.
LGC
“Below is a copy of a letter to the Editor that I signed along with 10 other members of the Rockford City Council. Several weeks ago, following the resignation of the City’s Human Resource Director, I sent a memo to the City administration asking several questions about the ability to outsource portions of the HR Department in an effort to save the City money. To date, I have not received a response to those questions. The Council would now like to move forward with exploring those opportunities on its own. As you will see below, we are facing significant challenge from the Mayor in our attempt to do so.
“The resignation of the City of Rockford’s Human Resource Director has created an opportunity to explore new avenues in addressing the current budget crisis. The City Council believes this transitional period offers the chance to make changes to the structure of the Human Resources department, including the outsourcing of several HR functions. At this time, a new Human Resource Director should not be appointed or installed on more than a temporary basis until these options for budgetary relief are fully explored.
 ”The City Council agrees that an interim hire with a five percent increase for the position is appropriate and sufficient while the City Council explores other options for the department; a belief that was made expressly clear to Mayor Morrissey prior to his nomination of Julia Valdez to the position of HR Director. We are disappointed in the Mayor’s continuing insistence on appointing a permanent hire with a 30% pay increase against the wishes of the council. Despite the Mayor’s assertion that he is trying to save the city $90,000 annually, he is, in fact, costing the city a rare opportunity to move in a new direction.
“The City Council acknowledges that the city’s Human Resources functions should be properly administered. However, considering the budget deficit in Rockford, we simply cannot afford to make permanent and costly decisions without exploring new ideas. An interim hire with an interim salary provides the opportunity to explore those options in the proper manner. Now is the time to further explore the option of outsourcing portions of the city’s human resource function. The potential for budgetary relief through this avenue should not be ignored.”
August 31st, 2010 12:09pm
Linda Grist Cunningham
I’ve had my share of disagreements with Julia Scott-Valdez over the past couple years and we are not weekends-together friends. But this much I know: She’s one tough, smart, on-task, get the job done and no whining exec.
I once watched her manage Police Chief Chet Epperson when he was flat-footedly and tone-deafly trying to implement a “no, we will not tell you what’s going on at the cop shop” policy. With few nuances, Epperson’s new policy would have essentially shut down access to public police records unless he released them — and he was making it very clear that he thought we had few rights to them. The news media, including the News Tower, were not so happy.
Epperson came in for a meeting with the Editorial Board and editors and reporters who cover cops. It was not, shall we say, pleasant. Julia was there, too.
As I recollect, nothing about her demeanor signaled anything but attentive listening, with an occasional clarifying comment or asking of an informational question. We ended that contentious meeting with what amounted to my saying: Chief, you’re nuts. This isn’t right and we aren’t going to sit quietly. Fix it.
Epperson’s public information policy took a more accessible turn in subsequent months, thanks, I am sure, more to Julia’s level-headedness than to the chief’s good will. That’s one example of her ability to understand conflicting information and positions, weave them together within policy, practice and the law, and then craft solutions.
So, when Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey slated her to become the city’s human resources director taking along her city administrator-public information officer tasks, it sounded like a good plan to me. Roll two positions into one, save $90,000, put an exceptional and experienced department head in place and give her a raise. What’s not to like?
Apparently Julia. Or maybe the mayor.
That’s the only conclusion I can reach given the dogged refusal of certain aldermen to confirm the switch. There’s been absolutely no hint of impropriety or failure to get the job done well. So, unless these aldermen know something the rest of us have no clue about, their recalcitrance has to be personal.
Frank Beach and Carl Wasco (he’s my alderman, just for the record) are the most quotable. They keep saying things like, and I paraphrase, “it’s not about Julia; we just love Julia; it’s about getting a budget in place first.”
(You can read the direct quotes in our news coverage.)
Well, OK, then. I get it. You’re wanting to be fiscally responsible. You think, heaven help you, that the city can rustle up an interim HR director, for what, a couple months? But, OK, I’ll munch on that a bit; maybe even try swallowing it. If ….
IF…. If you’ll introduce a resolution — you seem to love doing that — that says: Julia officially gets the job at the mayor’s recommended pay and responsibilities as soon as we get a budget in place.
Unless, of course, your opposition is more about one-upping the mayor, putting Julia in her place, or some other equally personal agenda. Come clean, guys, or write the resolution and pass it unanimously. Dare you. Double dog dare you.
August 25th, 2010 01:39pm
Linda Grist Cunningham
Women of my generation — before we burned our bras and wore skirts shorter than tunics — would not have been caught dead in Sunday morning’s pew without make-up, heels, hose, a dress with a jacket (no bare arms, period) and gloves (those little white ones.) In some places, a hat was also required every Sunday, not just at Easter.
Women of my generation — assuming we had the good sense not to dress like our teenage daughters and to put the bra back on — consider business casual to mean a pair of slacks and a matching jacket, slightly lower heels and no hat. It makes me irritable to have the obligatory dress code discussions. Sigh. Shouldn’t they just know? Makes me feel crone-like when I yammer away at the no-Spandex on interviews with the mayor rules.
But, do it I do. Because for whatever the reasons — and they are legion, starting with the bra burning and backside-uncovered skirts of my youth — we just don’t have much sense of what’s proper in a workplace these days.
It’s easier for the boys: collared shirt, tie, slacks, jacket, hard shoes and socks. There not much room for error with those basics. But for the girls? Oh dear. No flip flops. OK, I get that, but what about the cute, strappy sandals that LOOK like flip flops, but aren’t? Egads, the splitting of hairs.
The newsroom dress code is pretty simple: We are a professional work environment and we deal with the public. Dress accordingly.
I’ve periodically had to spell out the “accordingly.” No Spandex. Age- and size-appropriate. No jeans; not even the designer ones. No skin. No visible underwear. No pajamas. No shorts. And, yes, you have to cover your legs: socks, hose. No bare legs even in the summer. No cleavage. No sneakers or t-shirts.
School districts and churches are doing some teaching, too. Hike up the pants; get a belt. No naked midriffs. Size-appropriate (that means not so small I can see your unmentionables, and not so big you’ve become a tent.)
Yeah, women of my generation, we shake our heads and wonder: Don’t they know? But, no, they don’t. No one taught them and too many dress their little girls like sluts and let their teenagers bare skin like Brittany. They dressed like that in college, and figure, what the heck, why not at work, too.
So, we have to teach adults what would best have been learned at their mothers’ knees. We were, however, too busy burning bras and shortening our skirts. Smile, it’s OK. That’s what old folks do: teach. That’s what younguns do: test the limits.
For a slightly different take on the same subject of teaching — and role modeling — the right clothes to wear, take a look at what one North Carolina university is doing.
August 23rd, 2010 01:55pm
Linda Grist Cunningham
My Saturday mornings are spent doing the laundry, buying groceries, cooking, and cleaning up after the cats. I’m pretty sure Rockford aldermen, department heads and administrators would rather be doing my Saturday chores than sitting through budget meetings. For sure they’d rather being doing their own chores.
There is, however, this pesky $5.4 million pit between income and outgo in the city’s coffers. Although the solution is quaintly simple — reduce expenses; increase revenue — the how-to answers are not. No matter who suggests what, someone’s not happy, and it’s pretty clear that, at least for the moment, few at the table have much taste for doing more than tweaking around the edges and hoping that will be enough. It won’t.
Still, there are a few signs of creative thinking, ranging from use the motor fuel tax (bad idea) and outsource ambulance service (could be a good thing, depending) to sell the water system (interesting idea.) All are ideas in line with what other municipalities have done or are exploring.
Selling assets could bring a lump-sum check to cushion the Great Recession’s pummeling. Outsourcing work historically done by cities could save money. Done well, the combination of selling and outsourcing — raising revenue; reducing expenses — would ensure municipalities focus on their core competencies, provide adequate services to taxpayers and manage their employee resources more efficiently.
Two big “buts” from me: First, one-time revenue from asset sales cannot be used for ongoing operations. That means if you get a couple million selling a building, the cash cannot be used to allow the city to spend at current rates. Use it for road repairs, building demolition, job re-training, luring manufacturers or incentives for job creation.
Chicago used up a billion dollars of its parking meter sale cash for operations. Now that’s gone and there’s no revenue stream to replace it. Oops. Not smart. Just delayed the inevitable.
Second, outsourced services must meet or exceed the quality of service provided by the municipality. And the private companies charges directly to me, the taxpayer, cannot jump so high I can’t afford it. My water must remain safe. My ambulance must come quickly with qualified first responders. But don’t price gouge.
Outsourcing and selling were unthinkable things five years ago. Today, they just may be the way the new world works.
August 20th, 2010 06:20pm
Linda Grist Cunningham
As I write this, the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate will tell her audience that they can — they must — decide what their generation will do to make the world a better place for the next generation.
Carol Moseley Braun is back. She’s tonight’s keynote speaker at the annual Black Family Reunion, a community cultural celebration that rivals the biggest of Rockford’s heritage festivals. The weekend festival is sponsored by the National Council of Negro Women, a venerable organization that has long been central to supporting women — of all colors.
Moseley Braun’s been out of the public eye for years, but when she walked into the private luncheon today at the Radisson on Bell School Road in Rockford, the 50 or so women stopped in mid-conversation and applauded. There was no doubt, the strong, smart, vibrant, all-things-are-possible Moseley Braun I knew from Editorial Board meetings years ago was solidly in command.
Moseley Braun jokes that she’s a recovering politician, and she has turned her considerable skills to an entrepreneurial venture called Ambassador Organics, a food and beverage company specializing in organic products. It is, she says, her fourth career.
When Moseley Braun stumbled in Washington and she subsequently lost her Senate seat, the country lost an imposing, thoughtful and potential first woman as president. And later, on Jan. 15, 2004, Moseley Braun dropped her presidential bid and stepped aside in favor of Howard Dean. That was essentially her last major political spotlight.
A shame, really. A shame because Moseley Braun’s charisma and personal values coupled with her career experience makes her a formidable presence. She gave the women at today’s lunch a taste of her speech tonight. I read the entire thing a few minutes ago.
Perhaps she will never again run for public office. But this I would hope: Her voice should never be silent. She has much to say, and we have much to learn.
August 20th, 2010 11:23am
Linda Grist Cunningham
If rrstar.com blocks your ability to post comments to our website, are we voiding your First Amendment rights? Lots of folks think so.
Dr. Laura and Sarah Palin join the conversation over whether Dr. Laura’s First Amendment rights were trampled when she left her talk show under pressure. Ken Paulson, president of the First Amendment Center, offers his take, too.
Good primer from Paulson on what the First Amendment actually says. (Full disclosure: Ken is a friend; has visited us in Rockford; fan of Cheap Trick, former editor in Green Bay, University of Illinois grad, and former editor of USATODAY. And, obviously, I agree with his take.)
August 19th, 2010 12:52pm
Linda Grist Cunningham
OK, the war has officially been declared. I mean, once the word “terror” or any of its derivatives gets into the act, you know the food fight just escaped the cafeteria and is on the hunt for new battlefields.
The state’s historically clout-proud teachers unions are throwing the coleslaw over a column in the Chicago Tribune that explored a legal opinion that concluded “the state is not the guarantor” of public pensions if the whole mess goes belly up.
Out come the big guns from the Illinois Education Association and the Illinois Federation of Teachers and, in a barrage of words, the unions played the “terror” card: “How much longer will the Chicago Tribune allow itself to be used as a tool of terror by millionaire Eden Martin in his quest to deprive hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans of the reasonable retirement they, in large part, have paid for?”
Our friends down I-90 in the Trib Tower are taking the same heat from union hardliners as are we here in the News Tower. Read through these three links and you’ll understand better: (1) the Trib editorial; (2) the column that started it all; and (3) the unions’ response.
If there’s one for-sure thing on the Illinois landscape right now (other than the state fair, of course), it’s this: The to-the-death struggle between the state’s public unions and everyone else is on the field.
The once supremely powerful, awe-inspiring, contract-sealing public employee unions are terrified (there’s that word again) that the world they knew just months ago is gone. The local governments, which must by law balance their budgets, are on a cost-cutting expedition not seen in maybe forever, and surely not since the Great Depression.
And, the rest of us? Contract? Pensions? We wish. We’re just terrified we won’t keep or find a job, any job.
August 18th, 2010 08:58am
Linda Grist Cunningham
Oh, please, no. Do not dip into my piggybank to retry Rod Blagojevich. He paid — or I should say, his campaign fund paid — for his defense in the first trial. Next round, we’ll pay for both sides. Depends on who’s doing the estimating, but I figure all told in the $10 million range.
What we could do with a spare $10 million! We could pay down some bills. We could fix some roads. Heck, we could send a check to everyone living in the Land of Lincoln. The check would be chump change, but it’s better than nothing.
There are an estimated 12,910,409 of us, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. My handy-dandy calculator, which does long division faster than I can, says that we’d get a check for a dollar or so — and that’s per person. Got a couple of kids and grandma in the house? Multiply accordingly. Most of us could figure a way to inspire the consumer economy a bit.
The jury got him on one charge and 11 of the 12 got him on the remainder. Good enough for me. Let’s just sentence the man to five years in jail and fine him (we’ll never see the money, but so be it) and move on. I have absolutely zero interest in wasting money on another trial and even less in seeing that head of hair on my front page any longer.
Plus, I could use a check for a couple bucks. How about you?
August 12th, 2010 06:20pm
Linda Grist Cunningham
Rockford Mayor Larry Morrissey recycled the “education mayor” speech as his annual remarks to the Rockford Chamber of Commerce and gave little more than a passing nod to everything else.
Here’s how the chamber billed the speech: “Rockford Mayor Lawrence J. Morrissey will address the chamber business community on the priorities for the City of Rockford. Come learn firsthand from the Mayor regarding his education priorities, downtown development, economic development, and addressing the City’s pressing budget concerns. The Mayor will share his vision for Rockford and update the audience as to some of the success stories being accomplished for our community.”
The mayor did, indeed, include success stories, especially on roads and infrastructure. He even gave a nod to my connect the dots columns (thank you). We heard a boatload about education, how important it is and how crucial it is that everyone work together. No arguments about that.
There might have been a dozen sentences devoted to downtown development, economic development, budget concerns and vision.
I’ll just say it: I want the mayor to run the city, not the school district. I want a city mayor, not an education mayor. For now, let the educators run the schools, colleges and, yes, even those workforce boards and re-training programs.
No doubt, education is fundamental. But, darn it, mayor, right now, this minute, I want you focused on your core competencies and on the immediate city challenges. Balance the budget. Get back to serious, real negotiations with police and fire, and I stress the negotiations part. Those unions are going to have to bend until it hurts, and you have to bend, too, or that logjam is never going to break.
Get to the table with the county board chair and get some action on the consolidation of some law enforcement services. Get to the table and get some action on combining forces on economic development with RAEDC and the county. I know that at least those two things are on your plate and theirs. I’d sure rather have heard you talking about that than Alignment Rockford (and I love Alignment Rockford.)
You, Lavonne Sheffield and Scott Christiansen have the three most difficult jobs on the planet right now. They’re thankless. You are the dartboard’s bulls eye. I know every time you open your mouth, someone — including I — smacks you down, so maybe it was just easier to talk education.
There were 500 people in Giovanni’s banquet hall for lunch. Some of them were beyond thrilled at hearing all that education stuff. In fact, staff writer Sean Driscoll had a completely different take. He says you made the wise choice to stick with your education passion.
Heck, maybe I am the only one who wondered if you’d picked up the wrong speech.
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