In marketing, a dominant axiom is “perception is reality.†It looks like Erie Mayor Joe Sinnott has barreled into the reality of negative perceptions of City Hall.
Last week the Mayoral Advisory Group, a committee formed at the mayor’s request by the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership, published their Interim Report on Activity, Findings and Recommendations. This committee of forty “go get ‘em†CEO’s and business leaders was formed to assist the mayor in the Early Intervention Program in order for the city to avoid the Act 47 distressed municipality status. The EIP was released 15 months ago, and this report is to quantify how the city is keeping up with the program.
These are guys and gals that are used to presenting an initiative to their subordinates and find that it gets done, and quickly. In the EIP, there are recommendations for the development of plans within three months. Committee chair Norman Stark, Sr. writes in the report his frustration that very little has been accomplished in 15 months! Can you imagine a department head at Atty. Stark’s former firm getting an extra 12 months to complete a task that was supposed to be completed in 3? Stark calls out the “culture†of City Hall, it having a pervasive “don’t rock the boat†attitude.
In ETN press reports last week, the Mayor shot back at his own committee, saying that all his administration has been doing is “rocking the boat.†Sinnott is quoted as saying “I think that’s a prejudice out there that people have who haven’t delved far enough†basically in understanding city government. Mayor…dude…that’s your problem.
It’s obvious that a prevailing public perception of City Hall is that even as the government is at the brink of insolvency, not enough effort is being taken quickly enough to warrant glowing reviews. I get the sense that the mayor is exasperated at not getting the credit due for what he sees has been a yeoman’s task to try to right a ship that has been nearly sinking for decades. However, it is the opinion from his own appointed committee is that the culture continues to be deficient.
The mayor and the committee are probably both right, which by default means that the mayor loses the PR battle. It is his responsibility to communicate with clarity and persuasiveness the accomplishments of his administration. If he isn’t up for the job of PR flak, then he needs to hire someone who can communicate effectively. Meanwhile, if there isn’t enough to show for his actions, he must be a much greater force for real change so that the perceptions really change.
December 28th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
DON’T ROCK THE BOAT ATTITUDE
Joined: 12 Oct 2007
Posts: 31
Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 4:39 pm Post subject: We are looking for a moderator for the CATV Program
Bringing things up in front of City Council is totally useless. They don’t have the ability to get anything done. The City is bankrupt and the City officials are just waiting for the City to go into an Act 47 so the state will take over and they will loose their authority to govern. When they were all given a restructuring plan to turn the City around, no one implemented anything. In my opinion, the politicians are either unable or unwilling to do what needs to be done. The Mayor’s gesture to listen to the business community about financial problems has failed. Nothing ever got accomplished. It’s so bad that the State laws do not allow qualified outside third party consultants to come into Erie and do what needs to be done to turn then City around. The State legislation says that the City must give the restructuring plan to a City worker to implement the plan. That’s equivalent to saying that the same people that ran the City into the ground financially in the first place, are the same people bestowed the task of fixing things. It took two years to write the restructuring plan and nothing to date has been done except a lot of lip service.
In my opinion the honest business people need to get together and form a panel of businessmen to have weekly broadcasts on the Community Access Channel (CAT). No City politicians or Chamber of Commerce should be invited to be on this proposed panel. All the panel will do is identify the top 10 problems the City has and come up with 10 REAL solutions. After the solutions are agreed upon, the same businessmen and businesswomen need to roll up their sleeves and fix things within a specific time frame. What do the citizen’s of Erie have to lose???
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Crank
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 377
Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:06 pm Post subject:
I have to agree there is not much point in bringing things up in front of city council. They have demonstrated their inability to get anything done in a timely fashion so often, that no one takes them seriously anymore. Worse, they are so entwined with the public sector unions, that the taxpayer is never represented in decisions impacting the fiscal health of the city.
I am willing to give Sinnott a chance to right the ship, IF he actually follows through on his proposal to seek legislative authority to create a long term fiscal plan similar to what Act 47 provides. However, if this just turns out to be more lip service given out in a negotiating year, I fear he will have lost what little credibility he might have with the business community.
People have watched the reactions to the business community engagement on the airport project, along with the lack of any real business plan for the runway project by the city appointed authority.
With the national economy slowing, and Erie being so far off both the national and state economic pace for so many years, business as usual is not something we should be considering. There is a very real potential for disaster looming on the Erie horizon.
But with a combative, uneducated population ready to oppose any meaningful economic development, I do not see where the support would come from for any business backed, or developed recovery plan for the city. The city has put all there hopes in an ability to pick the collective pockets of anyone who comes to Erie, either to work, vacation or attend an event / convention.
Hotel and entertainment taxes are not the answer. Never were.
Editor’s Note: the remainder of “honesty’s” comments were intertwined with the text from the afore mentioned Interim Report, copied and pasted into the comments box. As such it is nearly unreadable. So I invite him to make further comments about opinions about the state of the city and the Committee’s findings without wholesale copying of the report.