Historic Harwich

Another Gotcha Moment

Gotcha

It seems almost inevitable that any committee reporting to the Board of Selectmen, having been tasked by the Board to come forth with a recommendation, is doomed to a gotcha moment, but I'm not entirely jaundiced about this if you read on.

The latest fiasco involving the Golf Committee is another in the string of committees lacking the correct order of flow I have been talking about. This one was a beauty.

It seems that the Golf Committee was tasked to return to the BOS with a recommendation for a charter change (maybe not) to better define the duties and responsibilities of that committee, since the charter is "ambiguous". Having worked for months on this, the Golf Committee is making a recommendation that the committee name be changed to "commission" to go back to the old order of things before the major change in management occurred over a year ago (by state mandate, I believe); and they want to be given those same control responsibilities and that the request should be included on the warrant for the next Special Town Meeting.

A Rose By Any Other Name?

At the last BOS meeting, some BOS members stated that they did not care what the Golf Committee called themselves, i.e. committee or commission, but that there is a problem with giving fiscal charge and direct supervision to that body since that has been assigned to the Town Administrator.

The Chair of the BOS made it clear that the discussion at this point was moot, since the Golf Committee is/was required to file a warrant six months before the Special Town Meeting in November, i.e. last May in order to get final approval from the citizens. This was the mother of all gotchas. Despite the fact that a BOS liaison person is assigned to the committee, supposedly on a regular basis, that requirement was never brought forward by the liaison, nor sought by the Golf Committee, nor is it obviously spelled out as a matter of course (no pun intended).

The Golf Committee chair looked like he had been hit by a two-by-four. He had no idea about that requirement or deadline. As it stands, the BOS chair has offered to hold another meeting prior to November to help sort out what will be needed for the ATM in May 2010.

In the meantime, a few of the BOS members openly and adamantly expressed their disapproval of the plan. When the Chair of the Golf Committee said that they have been working on this for months, the chair of the BOS declared that he had no idea that they were working on this plan, i.e. to change the charter to give the Golf Committee the responsibility of a commission.

If it means anything, the Golf Committee already has a paid Director of Golf Operations, (a paid insider), a position that looks and acts like the Harbormaster which is more than many of the other committees have (Example: The Housing Committee which deals with extremely complex issues has been seeking an insider position for several years and has finally gotten to the bid stage).

I mentioned the Planning Board in my last blog in terms of their coordination efforts.

 Town of Harwich Organization

By my reckoning, the Town has 9 boards; 1 authority; 26 Town departments; 7 commissions; 34 committees; 3 councils; 2 task forces; 3 partnerships/alliances; and 2 constables. And there is the Legal Counsel, and Town Moderator.

In my management days, it used to be standard practice that one manager should/could reasonably (horizontally on the organization chart) supervise eight people. Do the math. If you count just the "heads" of the above entities, there are 75 "supervisors", "directors", "chairs", etc. The Town Administrator has direct supervision over the 26 departments. He has one assistant and two secretaries. The BOS uses the same secretaries.

Here are a few things that come to mind:

On the matter of "commission" or "committee", I looked up the definitions in the dictionary, but, of course, this may not be the way we do business in Harwich:

•1.      A commission is a group of persons authoritatively charged with particular functions. I looked up authoritative, too. This means having the sanction or weight of authority which in turn means the power to act, judge, or command. (While I was at it, I looked up czar, lest we go that route, which is any person in a position of power, (as opposed to advisory) as a high public official.

•2.      A committee, on the other hand, is a person or group of persons elected or appointed to perform some service or function, as to investigate, report on, or act upon a particular matter.

• 3. A board is a piece of timber (oops). Not. A board is an official group of persons who direct or supervise some activity (which means management responsibility, oversight, and all that good stuff).
• 4. A council is a body of persons specially designated or selected to act in an advisory, administrative, or legislative capacity.
• 5. Liaison means the contact maintained between the units of an organization to ensure concerted action. So far, the charge of liaisons has been to allow the liaison person to perform as he/she sees fit, "using their own style", including not attending any meetings; but look at the number the BOS has to cover. Impossible.
• 6. An authority has legal power to enforce the law.

•7.      A task force is a group or committee formed for analyzing, investigating, or solving a specific problem.

I assume, among other things, that the Town Charter outlines and defines the limits of the power that is invested in each entity and the duration of the duties.

Management

The chief duties of "management" are organizing, directing and controlling, generally hands on, with the aid of management information systems (MISs) to verify activity.

From the BOS' standpoint, I can see four MISs in place that can be seen publicly:

• 1) The Town Administrator's Reports;
• 2) Chief Financial Officer Dave Ryan's reports on the finances;
• 3) Minutes of meetings, if they care to wade through them.
• 4) Occasional staff's or various entity's weekly briefings at BOS public meetings; and
• 5) Reports, if any, usually very few, of BOS liaison persons who ostensibly meet or connect in some way with each committee or commission or other.
• 6) End of year reports for the Annual Town Report.

I have no idea what MIS the Town Administrator uses or what each department head uses.

It seems almost impossible that anything can get done, or monitored, let alone done in a reasonably short period of time (under one year), yet, like the old Model A Ford, it keeps running.

When you factor in policies, directives, rules, and "coordination", you can see how imperfect the system is. No wonder there are delays, ambiguities and ‘mis-coordinations', especially since the committees are staffed by volunteers and many of the committees have no paid professional (insider) to communicate with or seek assistance from with regard to shepherding a proposal through the maze.

The Plight of Volunteers

Volunteers are seriously committed, oft-times highly professional people, sharing what they feel they know best from their previous careers and education. When conflicts arise, the BOS has to be the final arbiter, sometimes without complete information, as is the case in the Long Pond Road bikeways proposal, which now will cost the town $50,000 for a survey at a time when dollars are short.

In other cases, for one reason or another, when there is a lack of commitment by the BOS delay is better (and safer)  than arbitration/decision.

If you go back into the archives of my blogs, all the way back to 2007, you will see similar things happening all during the run-up to the RFPs for housing and old rec. bldg. renovations.

Something wrong?

Don't you get the feeling that something is wrong here? Maybe it's the priority. Another major task of the BOS is to review policies. I've seen meetings where they have spent many minutes/hours debating a single sentence. Maybe the emphasis should be on alignment of the entities into a manageable format with an MIS that makes sense. If this happened, maybe the policies would become clearer.

For one thing, a standard horizontal organization chart doesn't work very well here, except for the Town departments paid staff. Minutes of meetings are a form of MIS, a legal requirement for all duly authorized meetings according to the open meeting law, but have you read any minutes lately? Clearly they are inadequate with no standards for writing. Go on line and read a few and see how ineffective they are for following up an issue. At least something simple should be instituted as an adjunct, like a computerized code which shows when and what decision has been made, deferred, or denied and the vote count. Currently, you have to wade through a maze of discussions to find an answer. The basic up or down vote is the most important data item.

Power to Which People

The commissions are not equal in terms of power or what they oversee; some exert more and some much less than they should. In the most recent BOS Member, Mr. LaMantia asked if the Open Space and Recreation Plan will be part of the Comprehensive Plan or does it stand alone. I didn't hear a good answer; I assume that the Comprehensive Plan is the Master Plan and I think it is unconscionable to even consider any entity of the Town separate from the Master Plan. If a BOS member has to ask the question, who has empowered ANY commission to act on its own?

The committees are all advisory or "investigative" and can't be effective unless they know who to coordinate with, and even more important, what their charge really is. Some take on enormous projects on a wing and a prayer without a hint of support at the end of the line.

To Fix or Not to Fix

Fixing this, I say again, is no small project, but I'm sure there are doctoral candidates out there looking for municipal management projects. One of the vision statements of the Planning Board states something about "efficiency in delivery of town services." I'm not sure what this encompasses, just departments or the whole ball of wax. In any event, who is writing up the plan for this? The Comprehensive Plan is for ten years. Does this mean that the Town government will be using the same methods as today ten years from now? This should be a mandatory part of the Comprehensive Plan.

 What is the Overall Vision?

            In the past month, I have heard more discussion about bikeways than any other topic. I have yet to see or hear one thing about the economics of the town. Who is writing this proposal to reflect the Town's support of businesses other than making a warm and fuzzy value statement?

            And who is writing up a ten-year proposal for saving our historical heritage? The Historic District Commission should at least consider something. Why wouldn't they endorse the efforts of the Historic Harwich Center Initiative or use it achieve their ends, if they have any. Why has the Historic District been relegated to second citizenship when it could be a significant engine to help drive the creative economy?

One step has been taken: A survey of the Historic District is in the mill, but who gets the results and who decides what the next steps are?

I am having a lot of difficulty linking bikeways to having a significant economic benefit. Taking a thought from our former acting Town Planner, you need to be able to measure results. In what way will investing over $1 million dollars in the Long Pond bikeway result in economic benefit, or is the measure simply for enjoyment. Has Falmouth reaped $1.3 million dollars in economic benefit from their pork barrel expenditure?

Synergize or Not to Synergize? That is the Question

I understand now that the Comprehensive Plan will be short, but will have links to the various plans submitted by the various committees and commissions, etc.; reason being not to have a monster Plan with every plan included (like perhaps the 1018 page Health Care Bill that few people read; sorry about getting political). Therefore, as a working document, anyone wishing to consider a topic can link up with the "sub" plans. Hmmm. I looked up the word "synergy" which means "working together" and additionally, "exceeding the sum of individual effects."

This thought came about as a result of the Conservation Commission representative declaring that his commission's inventory of conservation land is woefully inadequate with regard to which land is worthy of high maintenance versus low. What comes to mind is triage. What land is needs most attention, i.e. with flora and fauna on the endangered list, which needs moderate attention, and which land has no immediate concerns? The Town Planner also mentioned in regard to Open Space that acquisition should not be the major goal, but maintenance of what we have. No one has sorted out what land is open for "municipal purposes" and land that is dedicated to "open space for conservation or recreation."

The way things are going, synergy is not the goal, it is the problem. Confusion reigns. 

Can't Believe My Eyes

If you have passed the Sisson Road School (formerly the old rec. bldg.), you will be pleased to see that something is being done about its appearance. I have had many doubts over the past three years and have been screaming about the dilapidated building. Thankfully, the vinyl siding is coming off and the building will get a few coats of paint; and a portion of the foundation has been fixed. I assume the windows will come next. I have to admit, happily, while Humpty-Dumpty isn't all together yet, a few cracks have been repaired, thanks to the CPA money well spent. However, the Historic District Commission is still strangely silent on the matter. You'd think that they would seek some news coverage about this to give a boost to the Harwich Junior Theatre in their fundraising efforts to fix the dilapidated inside. Their silence is deafening.

Here are pics of the activity going on as of October 13 (see above).

 Congratulations to HJT

It was also gratifying to attend a gathering at the Andale Restaurant held by the Friends of the Cultural Exchange Centers, Inc. (spurred on by Barbara Johnson) to celebrate the lease of the building and to hear and feel the positive attitude of Bob Doane, Nina Schuessler, and Tammy Harper, key figures in the HJT's success to date.

Go Sox, Go Pats