The Absent Mayor

A Vapid Survey to Address Our Letter? Where’s Garcetti?

June 20, 2019
DONE Watch

On June 5th, DONE released it’s GM Survey in response to our letter signed by NOW 50 Community Leader heavyweights across the City. 

While we all appreciate DONE trying to suggest the type of General Manager needed, do we really need to be asked to distinguish what constitutes quality leadership?  Wouldn’t these be obvious?

Or the qualifications?

And then there is this group of leading questions:

Over 50 of you who signed on to our letter, have served as President or an Officer for your Boards.  Our letter was submitted to the Mayor and City Council on May 28th, respectfully asking for a seat at the table.

A survey is not a proper response to a letter signed by 50 City Leaders!  And as of 6/16/19, no one has reached back to us from the Mayor’s Office.  Perhaps the Mayor is bogged down on other issues he has failed to respond to?  We just don’t know but know we all deserve better.

Many thanks to the recent adds from Jill Barad, John Walker, Gayl Murphy, Diane Valencia and Margarita Lopez who have grown our list of impressive City leaders.

To help the Mayor recognize that his silence is inappropriate, please consider adding the following text to each of the “Other” options on the survey (Just copy and paste):

As such, and while no means exhaustive in approach, we would like to suggest a potential path for the formation of a Citizen’s Selection Committee:

  • The Committee could be comprised of up to eleven (11) people made up of Mayoral and City Council Appointments which should include a majority of present or former NC board members with at least four (4) years of operational experience
  • Candidate searches would be open to the public to invite and give equal weight to applicants from outside the Department and City Family
  • During the search process, we respectfully request that a former or current NC member be selected as an Interim GM.

Allowing NC leaders, present or past, to participate in the selection process of the Department’s leader will benefit the system, the individual councils, and most importantly, the stakeholders they represent.

Let’s take back our Neighborhood Councils and our communities.