Mr. Bing, You Owe Me Some Change!

[kraig]

I didn't say he was perfect. You're right that he lost some credibility with that. But it doesn't change the fact that Harris exposed the lies of Kilpatrick's financial shell game. And who does Bing replace him with?

Get real. When it was all said and done, all Cockrel and Harris did was propose the same budgets and plans that Kwame did with even higher unrealistic assumptions. Part of the reason that we got into this mess was because Joe Harris never conducted routine audits, as required by law, of the City Departments. The new auditor is catching departments left and right. People need to stop thinking that someone is good at their job based on them attacking someone else that most people don't like. Joe Harris was a lousy Auditor General and a lousy Finance Director.

[Retroit]

Bing is thinking like a rational businessman. When a new CEO starts at a company, it is often best to leave existing management in place until you have learned from them what the current situation is and whether or not they are willing to partake in the changes you will be implementing.

I think that, in due time, Bing will replace people as necessary. Give him a little time to untangle the mess that Detroit is in. I just hope, for his sake, he is able to accomplish that before the next election. It is a huge task.

Just like Barak Obama, Bing is the victim of over-expectations.

[firstandten]

Get real. When it was all said and done, all Cockrel and Harris did was propose the same budgets and plans that Kwame did with even higher unrealistic assumptions. Part of the reason that we got into this mess was because Joe Harris never conducted routine audits, as required by law, of the City Departments. The new auditor is catching departments left and right. People need to stop thinking that someone is good at their job based on them attacking someone else that most people don't like. Joe Harris was a lousy Auditor General and a lousy Finance Director.

I really appreciate the kind of information you provided. It is easy for someone to go on TV and complain about what another administration is not doing. As a result you get a perception that the person knows what he's talking about and is doing a good job. I think Mr. Harris based on his complaints was seen to be a good public servant who was being overlooked or not being paid attention too. According to your statements I can now see why.

[kraig]

I really appreciate the kind of information you provided. It is easy for someone to go on TV and complain about what another administration is not doing. As a result you get a perception that the person knows what he's talking about and is doing a good job. I think Mr. Harris based on his complaints was seen to be a good public servant who was being overlooked or not being paid attention too. According to your statements I can now see why.

Thanks. Now the one that Bing should listen to is the fiscal analyst, Corley, it always seems that he knows and states where the city is financially months before anyone else. And he manages to do it without ever attacking anyone. For him and his staff it seems to be about the work and not the politics. Too bad he or the Ombudsperson, Durene Brown, aren't being listened to more. They seem to know their stuff.

[Locke09]

Thanks. Now the one that Bing should listen to is the fiscal analyst, Corley, it always seems that he knows and states where the city is financially months before anyone else. And he manages to do it without ever attacking anyone. For him and his staff it seems to be about the work and not the politics. Too bad he or the Ombudsperson, Durene Brown, aren't being listened to more. They seem to know their stuff.

Many competent people who could be leaders in this city are probably being shut out of the process precisely because they don't want to be involved with the politics. Maybe they don't want to compromise their integrity, they don't want to pressure vendors into buying fund-raising tickets, they don't want to have to form alliances with people who don't have the city's best interest at heart, they don't want to owe political favors, they don't want to hire people's relatives who aren't the most qualified, they don't want to lie to the public about the city's true condition [[financial or otherwise), etc. They just want the satisfaction, as you say Corley does, of having done such a great job that they can look at the outcome of their work and know that it made the city better. They want to know that doing it the "right" way [[education, experience, contribution to the city) pays off.

I'm just waiting for evidence that those are the kinds of people Bing will seek out. It's early yet, but I'm watching. I'm not willing to provide a long honeymoon because we can't afford one and because that is the argument Cockrel made for why we shouldn't elect someone with a learning curve in the first place. I don't want Bing to prove Cockrel right.

You don't look for results overnight. But you do look at the baby steps that are being taken to try to judge just where this ship is heading.

[EastsideAl]

I'm not holding out super high hopes for the Bing administration, as the problems of this city are so deep [[and go way beyond the city itself) and the local dysfunctional political culture so deeply embedded. But something to keep in mind here is that because of the peculiarity of this year's election there has been no transition period as there would be after a normal mayoral election. One day Bing was a candidate, far from a sure thing to win, and the next day he's Mayor.

Now he faces the equally unusual circumstance of running yet another campaign for the November election, with no real idea yet of who may challenge him. So, basically, we're in his transition period now, and because of the election cycle that transition will likely last through the end of the year.

So, Bing now gets to make his decisions while actually running the show, so he'll get to see who's worth keeping and who isn't. He also may have some people he wants to bring in from outside, perhaps from the business world, who won't commit until they're sure he's going to be in office for more than a few months.

[firstandten]

My concern with Mayor Bing and I have stated it from the beginning is that he is going to have a steep learning curve going from the private to the public sector. He is going to need to have good people advising him and I believe the pool of people he can choose from is not deep. Then unlike private business he must fully vet the people who will be advising him. We have already seen some of the problems with one person who was to be advising him. The fact that he will have many people advising him makes the vetting more difficult all while being in campaign mode at least thru the end of this year. Mayor Bing even with his business is not a micro-manager [[you will need to read between the lines with that statement) and my fear he will put too much trust in some and not enough in others and it will take a while to get the kind of team that needed to turn the city around.

The one advantage I think he has that if Tom Barrow runs against him that would be the basketball equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters playing the Washington Generals.

[kraig]

I seem to recall something about the records of various departments not being produced in either a timely fashion or coherently enough for an audit to be conducted.

Six of the ten years he was Auditor General, Dennis Archer was the mayor, those records were available. The AG is supposed to audit every city department every two years. Joe Harris never audited one single department every two years. The new AG, Loren Monroe, has been doing audits ever since he got there. Joe Harris just didn't do his job. He also had an extremely high employee turnover rate. His default excuse has always been that his staff is untrained. He's a hack.