Question Nine: City Administrator?

9. If elected mayor will you support advertising for and hiring a city administrator within a few months of your election? If yes please explain the advantages of having a city administrator and if no then please explain why our city does not need to have someone in this position.

Dennis Patton's Reply

City ordinances call for a City Administrator to be hired. If the current deficit budget situation entices the Council to make cuts, I believe they should be made at the administrative level. If the majority wants to change the ordinance I feel I have the experience and the time to adequately complete many portions of the City Administrator’s job description. Developing budgets, working cooperatively with the City Financial Officer, evaluating personnel, meeting with department head to oversee daily City operations, working with the City Engineer to develop long range plans to maintain the City’s infrastructure, and leading labor negotiations are tasks I have 27 years of experience with.

Kevin Hutchinson's Reply

Yes, over the past 6 years we have seen how an administrator has saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. I could write a book on this but I will try to keep it short and simple.

Elected officials set policy and procedure. Based on the political climate, that is what we are elected to do.

Administrator carries out day-to-day operations without political bias

Elected officials come and go leaving no consistency for operations or employees.
Administrator is the common denominator to keep operations flowing consistently

Elected officials may have no training, education or experience
Our Administrator had his masters degree in administration, planning experience, zoning experience and the list of municipal experience goes on and on.

A Mayor playing administrator micro managing day-to-day operations opens every employee up to political scrutiny. This could change every 4 years. Employees should be able to do their jobs without this stress.

I could go on and on but I hope you see my point

Harold McCarty's Reply

No, I am planning on having strong department heads to run their departments and they will report to the City council and the Mayor. I also plan on having an executive secretary which the mayors had in years past which worked out very well, not only in getting the job done, but financially was more cost effective.