The Questionable Qualifications of Fort Lauderdale City Management

The Questionable Qualifications of Fort Lauderdale City Management

Much talk has surfaced recently about employment contracts that the City Manager has signed for many Department Heads here in Fort Lauderdale. These employment contracts are basically a form of insurance for the employee who manages a Department. The employee cannot be terminated without receiving a fat severance package from us the taxpayer. (See a previous post I wrote about this issue: http://abetterftlauderdale.com/?p=568).

The main problem that exists with these employment contracts is that neither the Mayor, any Commissioner, nor the City Commission as a body can interfere with the hiring or firing of any City employee, including Department Heads. The City Charter specifically prohibits it. Go to this link:  http://library7.municode.com/default-now/home.htm?infobase=10787&doc_action=whatsnew  to review section 3 of the City Charter. Section 3.07 and Section 6.06 of the Charter specifically spell out the limitations of our Commissioners. Only the City Manager can hire and fire. Only the City Manager can establish new Departments and Department Managers. I cannot find anywhere in our City Charter that requires the City Manager to obtain the approval of the Commission or to even notify the Commission of who is being selected to fill Department positions.

And there’s the rub. Over the last several years, City Manager Gretsas has placed unqualified (and in many cases incompetent) people in positions of authority to manage City Departments. These appointments have been personal friends of Gretsas; many are people he worked with while in White Plains New York and Westchester County. Our City Charter prohibits the hiring of relatives; it does not protect us from the hiring of “hacks” or “Yes-men” who owe their allegiance only to Gretsas.

Besides hurting the effectiveness of City Government by positioning incompetent people as Department Heads, it severely damages the morale of employees within those Departments when they see a new, unqualified person take over. There are numerous examples of this happening over the last five years; I will mention four Department Heads who have questionable background to run their respective Departments.

David Hebert: Mr. Hebert is an Assistant City Manager (and a friend of George Gretsas) who was appointed to run Police, Fire and Emergency Management. The problem with this appointment is that Mr. Hebert has NO police, fire or emergency management experience. In fact, he’s never managed anyone. His past experience is simply as a “spokesman” for a District Attorney in Westchester County, New York. Why do we have someone with no applicable experience running these critical departments? Many inside these Departments feel that Hebert is nothing more than a “spy” for the City Manager. What is particularly galling to many is that Hebert’s appointment comes at a heavy price: his contract costs the City over $223,490 a year. His contract expires next month (Jan 2010), but, due to the City Charter, Gretsas is free to renew his contract, and at whatever compensation plan he deems appropriate. And our Commission can do little to stop him. Neighborhood watchdog Cal Deal has done a lot of investigation into this individual. Please go to his web site to learn more: http://fortlauderdaleobserver.com/.   There is a wealth of information there, including Hebert’s past resume.

James Eddy: Up until October this year, our City’s Fire Chief was James Eddy. Another one of George Gretsas’ friends. What was his past experience that qualified him for his job? He once sold fire extinguishers! Fortunately, enough pressure built up in the Department that Eddy eventually resigned. Now however, it’s two months later and we still don’t have a new Fire Chief. We have more Assistant Chiefs than cities much larger than ours, yet the Chief’s position remains unfilled. Why? Many think it’s because Gretsas can’t find someone within the Department that will owe his or her allegiance to him completely. He cares less about experience and more about alliances. He may be looking for another friend from New York.

Robert Bates:  Robert Bates is a mysterious person. He apparently has a legal background and like most of Gretsas’ cohorts, comes from New York. Bates operated as an advisor for Gretsas and was the one who wrote the original hiring contract for George back in 2004. (If you recall from an earlier posting, Bates had included a number of timing hurdles or dates in that contract that our City Commission had to follow exactly, or else Gretsas’ contract would have been automatically renewed. Very clever! Fortunately, our current Commission caught these).

So what is Bates doing now? He’s the Head of the Office of Professional Standards. This is the Department that City Employees are supposed to be able to use to get help with certain employment problems and resolution with managerial conflicts. So can someone (who is a personal friend of Gretsas) provide objective professional guidance when a City employee has a problem with Gretsas himself? According to many City employees, the answer is a resounding “NO”. According to them, Bates is nothing more than a shield for Gretsas. Add to this his lack of related experience in any prior job, and you have another Gretsas crony or “yes-man”. Above all other City Departments, this one should continually demonstrate ethical integrity. Does it?

Valerie Bolander: Ms Bolander is an example of how incompetent people are often the ones who move up the ladder faster than those who are knowledgeable about what they do. Ms. Bolander is the Head of Fort Lauderdale’s Building Department, one of the most important City Departments that interacts with residents on a daily basis. What was her experience and background that qualified her for this position? She was an administrative person with “Occupational Licenses” with the City (some say she was nothing more than a glorified file clerk). Bolander had no knowledge of building permits, or what the processes of permits involved. She had little knowledge of anything related to the Building Department. Her managerial experience was slim to none. Department insiders are still scratching their head as to what qualified her for that position. And anyone who has had to recently get a building permit knows full well that the responsiveness from this Department is just as slow now as it was during the building boom. And the Department has essentially the same number of employees that it had then.

These are the types of people that Gretsas has placed in managerial roles; people that receive hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in your tax dollars and are people who are ill qualified to perform their jobs. They are in their positions because of a history and/or a close personal friendship with George; NOT because they have an appropriate background or experience to do the job.

And our Commission (based on the wording in our City Charter) is limited in its ability to change any of this. The only real course of action our City Commission has is to remove the City Manager, and replace him with someone else who can do some serious “housecleaning”. Are you outraged about this? You should be! Contact your Mayor and Commission and ask them to speed the process in replacing George Gretsas! Go to our Home page to call the Mayor’s office or to send them an email!

Earl Rynerson