I’ve been following Fairfield County Politics for three decades now, and while I’m seldom surprised by decisions made in council chambers, I’m often disappointed. The recent decision by county council to offer our current administrator a five month contract extension has managed to do both – surprise and disappoint.
As a former county employee in the Information technologies department, I was often in contract negotiations as a subject matter expert. I’ve seen firsthand what unsettled management issues can do to employee morale and virtually all ongoing negotiations, be they for telephone or computing systems or for long term projects such as waste water treatment plants or potential financial development projects. Contractors do not want to bid in unsettled environments, and it ends up costing the county in terms of quality of bidder and quality of work. It ends up in “no-bid contracts”, and potential corruption as we saw years ago under the Hinely-Anderson administration.
Fortunately, those days seemed far behind us, our administration seemed to be honest, fair minded public servants, interested in the best outcomes for our county and our citizens. Is current administration perfect? Certainly not, none are. But their track record is one of which we ought to be proud. This begs the question: Why change now? I do not have an answer. But it also begs a second question: How do you plan to hire a replacement? Ask yourself this:
What quality candidate would want to work for a council disposed to micromanage daily operations?
How do you propose to find a candidate with a proven track record comparable to or better than our current administrator?
Seriously, what are you thinking?
People want to know and we have a right to know. I do not wish to give credence to rumors, but when rational answers fail, what’s left are highly suspect motivations. It’s not too late to fix this, but you must act decisively and quickly.
Bob Carrison
Winnsboro