“Should the city be run like a business?,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, February 24 – March 1, 2012, 17.

IS THE CITY A BUSINESS?

On Valentine’s Day, of all days, I went to a press briefing by the mayor. Listening to the gripes of some journalists—do you really want the minute by minute calendar of the mayor?—I was struck by one participant who admonished the mayor that “the city is not a business.”

It’s obvious that the city isn’t a business in the same sense that a dog isn’t your friend: the city can run like a business just the way you can consider a dog “man’s best friend”. But the reporter must have had something more profound on her mind.

If by business we mean an organization whose sole purpose is to maximize profits, as classical texts used to define it, then of course a city isn’t a business: it makes no profits as a civic entity, and therefore its purpose isn’t to maximize said profits.

What if we changed profit maximization with profit optimization or even sustainability? This would be relevant for businesses but still insufficient as an answer to our question. 

If by city we mean an organized group of people who self-legislate their social contract and agree on self-governance and the adoption of rules and regulations that include taxing authority, then of course this is not how businesses are structured or run.

Does it mean that cities are not meant to run efficiently like businesses? That’s silly, since efficiency is valued no matter the context. You can be efficient washing your dog without sacrificing being careful and kind; this means, for example, not wasting water or making sure to dry your dog before leaving the bathtub (rather than after water-marks mess up the entire house).

So, if businesses are supposed to be efficient with their resources, both human and material, why would that be bad for running cities? After all, the city budget is made of taxes and fees collected from the community, and it stands to reason that the community would want the city not to be wasteful.

Perhaps the issue is human resources. Do businesses treat employees differently from city governments? I doubt anyone has empirical evidence to definitively answer this question. But in principle, businesses and cities similarly invest in training their employees and therefore treat them well (so as to have low turnover which is costly).

A sense of family-like relation evolves in businesses and city administration alike, especially when employees work together for long periods of time. Labor laws—state and federal—apply in both organizations, so it’s not about that either.

Is it a question of treating the public differently? Do city employees always treat members of the public who pay their salaries worse than business employees who are paid indirectly by their customers? I doubt this is the case, especially as city employees are trained to treat citizens as customers (who are always right, even when they are not), just as in the business world.

The more we think about it, the more we may realize that what we are talking about is organizations and their internal culture. The culture of an organization may arise organically, growing along the growth of the organization, responding to external and internal pressures, figuring out the core mission and values of that organization.

Sometimes organizations get distracted when financial or natural crises appear; sometimes changes come about for no apparent reason. And then there are changes that force a reorientation, like an election of a new leader (CEO or mayor).

Some may like Mayor Bach, some may not; some think he’s too tall, some that he’s not tall enough; some voted for him, some voted for other candidates. The fact is, the majority voted him into office—for one term only, as he promised.

Some may like the strong mayor concept, some may not; the majority voted for it, so the city charter was changed.

Given majority rule in a democracy, the strong mayor is a reality, and so is Mayor Bach. We can choose to either put every obstacle imaginable in his way, or let him try to accomplish what he said he would: run the city like a business, bringing his business experience to bear on the administration of this city.

Some top city administrators have quit or retired; some were invited to leave; some are under investigation; some deserve their pensions for years of service (a socialist concept that is fading under the harsh realities of hyper-capitalism).

If the Bach experiment has a prayer, it’s that he’ll choose wisely the best candidates to fill positions in his administration. We can either watch from the sidelines or help him succeed. His success or failure, after all, is ours.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS who supported Richard Skorman for mayor. He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com Previous articles can be found at sassower.blogspot.com

 

. “Mayor’s Job Calls for Accountability and Leadership,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, March 18-24, 2011, 19.

HAVING BOUGHT A STRONG MAYOR, WHAT NOW?

The mid-term elections last year brought some of the fringe radicals on all sides to illustrate how open a society we are, and how sometimes it is better to stay focused on local issues and worry about our own financial and social wellbeing. When the local Chamber of Commerce endorsed a democrat for the governorship, we know that the alternatives were off the charts. So, are we indeed less ideological and more pragmatic? Are we reasonable citizens working for what is best for all of us?

The Jenkins father-son duo were able to accomplish, with a hefty investment of their own money, what previous mayors, council-members, and commissions were unable to accomplish almost since I arrived in Colorado Springs in 1986. For this feat alone, they should be thanked by all of us, whether or not we are businesspeople or public servants. The question, though, remains: is having a strong mayor good for the city?

I recall many years ago, when I was facing unfriendly neighbors who called me a “foreigner” and expressed their dismay that someone like myself was developing what has become the Warehouse complex that I had to go before city council while Mayor Bob was in charge. He listened to their complaints, found them to be without merit (but with much malice), listened to my plan, and continued the hearing disregarding their threats to go after him personally. Yes, he was one of those “good old boys” in more than one sense, and I didn’t know if I’d get a fair chance. I prevailed and respected him for letting an upstart get a shot against the old establishment. He died poor, as my late friend Dr. Ted told me. As poorly as he was paid, and as powerful as he was, he never personally benefited from his position. Whether you agreed with his decisions or not, he was a leader!

The Daley mayoral dynasty in Chicago has just ended its reign, and the current New York City emperor is an outrageously wealthy strong mayor (he bought his way to a third-term and nullified term-limits, something we usually see in Latin America). Do we want to follow in their footsteps? Will it be good for us? I guess if Bloomberg moved here and began spending his billions, we’d be doing great… But I doubt we will ever be as large and as prosperous as these cities; yet we have a chance to make this city great by making good use of a strong mayor.

Having witnessed firsthand the mayoral forum at the Fine Arts Center, it seemed as if the gravity of the responsibility wasn’t fully acknowledged: nine candidates answered haltingly or dramatically (or, in some cases, not at all) fairly straight-forward questions. Are any of them ready to take on a deficit and a demoralized constituency? Are they up to the challenge? Is running a private corporation similar to running a city?

There are two dimensions associated with a strong mayor: accountability and leadership. I think that previous mayors have been accountable and have felt that they owed us an explanation if and when they acted in ways that were deemed questionable (the USOC is a case in point). What about leadership? Leaders are born not made, some scholars suggest. Our very own Center for Creative Leadership counters: we can train people in positions of power to become better, more effective leaders in their own organizations, public and private, regardless of their innate character. So, would a strong mayor necessarily be a leader in ways that the previous model didn’t allow for?

“You get what you pay for,” we are reminded by some business mavens. So, if we pay more for a mayor we are bound to get a better mayor. Is this a question of expectation? If we expect more of the mayor, now that the pay is much higher, will we indeed obtain a leader worthy of the title? Corporate America supports unequivocally the view that astronomical salaries and bonuses yield results. Yet, if you were to ask ten academic economists, you are bound to hear different appraisals of their empirical research on the correlation between CEOs’ pay and corporate profits. What about us, then?

Here is my wish list of a strong municipal leader, only some of its items were lightly addressed by the nine mayoral candidates at the FAC:

First, be a respectful leader: be the first among equals, and treat council with the respect all its members deserve. But be their leader nonetheless: come up with ideas and navigate through those of others. Compromise is not a bad word.

Second, be a promoter: tell the world how great we are and what a great place Colorado Springs is to live in: the healthiest city in the nation! The USOC is here!

Third, remember to boost local morale: taxpayers want to hear good news about their city and its daily accomplishments: find good news and make sure we all hear about them! Hiking and biking trails, for example, do much more than cater to a group of healthy residents; they increase the value of real estate as well.

Fourth: find a goal worth leading us towards and set your eyes and heart on it (your mind, too): we are blessed to have some worthy goals, such as national athletics and intelligence research that would put us on the national map. It may be more appealing to talk about defense contractors who are located here than about military bases.

Fifth: every city of any significance in the world has a vibrant downtown: make it the city’s mission to bolster the viability of our downtown and encourage all the residents to visit and support it (and have the meter-ticket-givers take a break). What about bringing the Sky Sox downtown? Remember what this kind of a move did for Denver.

I’m sure each resident has a wish-list of her/his own, and perhaps Santa Claus will be coming after all this spring… We owe it to ourselves to bring forth the best ideas we can come up with and expect the mayor to pick some and run with them! Even libertarians want leadership and not anarchy, last I checked their treatises; and liberals are no different: they expect wise government action. Conservatives and centrists alike also want their leaders to represent them well, to be “philosophers-kings” as Socrates suggested, and not simply be mediators and peace-makers (police officers do this job).

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS.