For those of us who follow the Tuesday night broadcasts of the
Glendale City Council meetings, this past Tuesday (Feb. 4) was a new
low in the conduct of two of our council members. It appears there is
no limit to which either will go to justify their actions or to
promote their individual agendas. Micromanagement is becoming the
issue of the day.
Glendale is a city manager form of government and has been for
nearly 100 years. The council's role is, and has been, to provide the
vision for the city, to govern, work with the city manager, set
policy and respect the differences in the principal duties of council
and city manager. The city manager manages the city through the
various departments and meets the expectations of the policy makers,
the council. Council members do not manage, and city managers do not
set policy.
It was embarrassing for me, and I am sure for many citizens of
Glendale, to watch the diatribe of Mr. Yousefian and his attempt to
confront the city manager, Mr. Starbird, regarding a time-honored and
successful process used in the selection of department heads. The
intent of this process is to keep political influence from warping
the appointment of candidates.
It appears that Mr. Yousefian is arguing for putting his political
stamp of approval on all future appointments. This is the worst kind
of pressure on a city manager, and exhibits an arrogance that should
not be tolerated. It leads to the spoils system and in all respects
promotes failure.
City managers have, during their careers, developed a wealth of
experience in recommending, by the process mentioned, the appropriate
people for the various positions. Those elected to office oftentimes
have very little, if any, experience in managing people. I doubt if
any of the present council members have ever managed more than five
people at any given time. They are in office because they were
convincing enough in their campaigns to describe their vision of
where the city should be headed, or they had sufficient support and
money from various interested organizations throughout the city.
These two council members' vision, at times, doesn't extend beyond
their chairs at the dais. It appears they are primarily interested in
managing the city manager, all the department heads and whatever else
comes to their respective minds.
Mr. Quintero's goal, as expressed Tuesday night, is to reorganize
four of the city's departments. Mr. Quintero's position was weakened
considerably by his lack of rationale for taking action. It appears
