Here’s The Scoop … LBTS Commission Meeting 10/27/09… #1 … There’s No Crying In Town Management …
October 29, 2009 by Barbara
There’s No Crying Esther …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWoD2sQ9LiU
Dear Readers… The Town Manager is “takin’ it personal” again… She’s all in a tither because an e-mail was sent to her by Commissioner Dodd after he received an e-mail from a vendor who was informed of the behavior of town staff in September… and she’s crying about it on the dais… It’s getting to be a regular thing…and unfortunately it comes with a cost…In an effort to cover for “her staff” and to prove that she is right it costs in time…money and in LBTS public relations!…
Chris Hood, the Grant and Partnership Manager from a company called Iye Tek http://www.iyetek.com/ read about the Parking Citation Process RFP in LBTS not having any responses due to an inferior advertising on this site and took it upon himself to get involved …He came to a meeting and spoke about it …The commission decided to go back and re-issue the RFP despite the protestations of the Town Manager …and although she reluctantly complied with the direction given to her…we knew there was no way this would go smoothly and in all likelihood Mr Hood, who was now on Ms. Colon’s “radar” would not go away unscathed…Nope, he was in her “Dodd” sights and you all know what that means!… As the process proceeded there was another RFP put out, though marginally better than the first one…and after that the “exchanges” began…between vendors, staff and commissioners…not just commissioner Dodd as Commissioner Clottey also admitted to from the dais…(OOPS!)…saying she exchanged e-mails including those with Mr. “Hughs” (Mr Hill)…
It is this writer’s understanding that Mr Hood complied as did other vendors with all that was required by the town to fulfill the RFP in its entirety…The process required staff to contact references and that involved e-mails and phone calls to check out each company….which they did…
On Sept. 29th Comm. Dodd received an e-mail from Chris Hood who was contacted by the Plantation Police Dept. which included the following statement in quotations “What the hell is going on in Lauderdale By The Sea?”…also expressing how rude a person from our town was. It was a person from the Plantation PD IT department and Mr Hood expressed that it happened more than once…Mr . Hood wrote “For the customer to call me- it must have been bad. The people in the Plantation PD are great and if this was minor they would have just brushed it off.”….Comm. Dodd responded and apologized for the situation on “behalf of the commission” and went on to explain his own problems in the process with town staff for information he [Dodd] was asking for in doing his own research on the RFP comparisons. Comm. Dodd went on to relay his personal opinion that the reluctance he observed was due to a resistance on behalf of some to “change.”…
Commissioner Dodd then sent in a copy of the e-mails to the Town Manager on Oct. 1st…… Unlike the portrayal on the dais from the Town Manager on Tuesday night, she did not uncover some nefarious act by Comm. Dodd….. NOPE…In fact Comm. Dodd sent it to her for her to be aware of what took place and thought perhaps she might want to remedy the situation…You would never know that from how Ms. Colon put her “spin” on it as she passed out the “packet”… She spoke of the “cone of silence”..(next post)…and then went into her all too familiar “takin’ it personal” mode …She read from a portion of the e-mail sent from Mr Hood about the staff member and from a portion of the e-mail response from Comm. Dodd …She said “I happen to know who the two staff members were. One was Nikki Smith and the other was Kaola King. I took that real personal and that is why I personally validated this grid.” She went on to read from the packet a portion of a reply sent to a woman in the Plantation PD from Kaola King asking about the situation and any problem, a portion of the reply was read “not at all you’ve been nothing but professional.”… Town Manager Colon was incensed…But here’s the problem with all this…it should not have been done on the dais…It was way off in left field! …
Why didn’t the Town Manager or staff contact Mr Hood first after receiving the e-mail from Comm. Dodd?… Why would the above alleged action be the impetus for the Town Manger to “personally validate this grid”?…What does one thing have to do with the other?…Why go to such lengths on the dais to make it appear that Comm. Dodd had done something that was unethical when it was not!…
I have heard countless times other commissioners and other members of boards, committees etc…apologize “on behalf” of the”members over the years…It is not unethical…It’s just something people do…and it’s usually seen as “good form”…something common to the English as most are people aware… As usual in his buffoonish style…Jimmy-boy got on board with his gal-pal with the “thin skin” and said he doesn’t know where Commissioner Dodd’s “thinking process” was …emphatically expressing as only Jimmy-boy can…. Comm. Dodd does not speak “on our behalf”…”that is unacceptable to me, do not speak on my behalf, you may speak on your behalf”…It must be more of that “Carl Young”! (Jimmy-boy called Jung …Young http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung) …he’s so fond of!…ARGHHHH….
Look, this too has got to stop. It’s improper and it’s embarrassing for a Town Manager to be “takin’ it personal” and going off like this from the dais in what amounted to nothing but a botched attempt at a “gotcha”squarely aimed towards Comm. Dodd for his interference in the Town Manager’s RFP process …There was nothing to “get” him on especially when her own handed out “packet” clearly proves that Comm Dodd sent her his e-mail exchange in order for her to be aware of the problem that arose within her staff in this RFP process….The only real “gotcha” found….is that once again it shows this Town Manager’s out of her league!…
There’s no crying in Town Management… Esther!…
more to come….
