Dr. Jose F. Moreno

Dr. Jose F. Moreno

Los Amigos of Orange County has proposed another bad idea: a series of “community forums” for selecting Anaheim’s next city manager.

Here’s the e-mail sent to the Anaheim City Council on Monday by Los Amigos President Jose F. Moreno:

Good Monday Morning Mayor Tait and Councilmembers:

This past week, in their search for a new City Manager, the Santa Ana City Council announced various community forums they are hosting as an opportunity for residents, community organizations and stakeholders to provide input in the characteristics that their city needs in a new City Manager.

We thought the idea of open and inclusive community forums a grand idea for our great City of Anaheim as we begin the search for our new City Manager!

Please accept this as our formal request that as our Mayor and City Council, you convene various community forums across the city to gather  input on the characteristics sought / needed for a new City Manager in Anaheim. 

You should know that current City Manager Bob Wingenroth was truly respected for his hard work, acumen and openness over the past couple of years. Mr. Wingenroth’s openness was a breath of fresh air for many parts of the City that have too often been left behind or simply ignored. Mr. Wingentroth’s good work has raised our expectations for transparency and collaborative work and we trust that as Mayor and City Council you will continue that ethic through an inclusive search process for the next Anaheim City Manager. As such, below are a few questions we thought important to ask that are essential, but certainly not exhaustive, that we ask you provide responses to. In this way we can inform our community on the status of the search and the City Council’s plan for assuring an open and inclusive process as possible:

1. Timeline for the Search
2. Will a search firm be hired? and will this be a competitive bid process?
3. Will the search include a search committee or will City Council serve as the Committee?
4. Will there be opportunities throughout the City for public input?
5. Will the job description be reviewed and/or updated in public? and Will this include public input?
6. Will the City Council discuss in public session the characteristics and qualifications that are considered “minimal” and “desired”?
7. How will the City Council assure a highly qualified and diverse pool of candidates?

As always, if we can be of any help in this process we are Ready, Willing and Able to provide whatever is necessary to support the ability of residents, community organizations and stakeholders in Anaheim to participate and contribute to this most important of processes. As has become quite clear throughout Anaheim, the selection of a City Manager is a decision that will impact the lives of all those who live, work and play in Anaheim.

If you have any questions or would like to meet further to discuss our request I can be reached via email at Morenojo@sbcglobal.net or via cell at 562.397.9451. And of course you are always welcome to join us for breakfast at our weekly Los Amigos meetings on Wednesdays at 7:30am at the Jagerhaus Restaurant 2525. E. Ball Road (just west of 57 Fwy).

We look forward to an affirmative response.

Jose F. Moreno
President, Los Amigos of Orange County

Where to start?

As a general rule of thumb, practically-insolvent Santa Ana isn’t the place to look for examples of good governance.  That truism aside, Los Amigos’ call for a series of city-sponsored community forums on what kind of city manager Anaheim residents want is both absurd and self-serving.

First of all, it is easy for those citizens of Anaheim who have given any thought to what kind of city manager they’d like to register their ideas. They can e-mail their councilmembers. They can tell their councilmembers face-to-face during public comments at council meetings (a community forum that takes place at least twice a month). They can sound off at a neighborhood council meeting.

And every two years, there’s a city council election, and voters for whom the city manager selection is an issue can manifest their satisfaction on the issue (or lack thereof) in how they cast their votes.

Left-wing groups love community forums because they’re adept at exploiting to stage a made-for-media mirage of popular support for whatever nostrum they’re peddling.

Hey pig! Is there a plan for an open and inclusive city manager selection process?

“There’d better be a plan for an open and inclusive city manager selection process, man!”

And that’s what Los Amigos want: the opportunity for their members, and OCCORD, and UNITE-HERE, to run a human-wave drill in front of an audience of reporters who will write stories saying Anaheim residents want their new city manager to “look like” the community and support council districts, the “living wage,” retention policies, and whatever else is on their political agenda.

This is a play by Los Amigos to sucker City Hall into granting them an quasi-official role in choosing the next City Manager.

Here’s a passage from Moreno’s e-mail worth scrutinizing:

In this way we can inform our community on the status of the search and the City Council’s plan for assuring an open and inclusive process as possible:

1. Timeline for the Search
2. Will a search firm be hired? and will this be a competitive bid process?
3. Will the search include a search committee or will City Council serve as the Committee?
4. Will there be opportunities throughout the City for public input?
5. Will the job description be reviewed and/or updated in public? and Will this include public input? 
6. Will the City Council discuss in public session the characteristics and qualifications that are considered “minimal” and “desired”?
7. How will the City Council assure a highly qualified and diverse pool of candidates?

“Open and inclusive”? As opposed to a “closed and exclusive” search process?

“…will this be a competitive bid process”? What? Anaheim is hiring a city manager, not sourcing a new IT vendor. Moreno is a school district trustee whom I hope would know the difference between hiring and purchasing.

The answers to these questions generally self-evident or stand to reason. It’s a pretty good bet the hiring of the City Manager will be a public act. There are state laws governing what aspects of this process must be conducted in open session, and what must be done in closed session. Los Amigos members will have the same opportunities as anyone else to voice their opinions as to who the next city manager should be, or what qualities that person should have — and a series of city-sponsored community forums aren’t necessary for that purpose.

But at the end of the day, hiring a city manager is the job of the city council. Anaheim citizens elect them to run city government, and hiring (and overseeing) the city manager is one of those responsibilities, and not one that can or ought to be shirked in favor of government-by-community-forum.