Colin Guy tells us that Mayor Canon would have preferred that former Midland City Manager Rick Menchaca stay on the job and that he thought mediation might have resolved the issues with the City Manager's office. Well maybe. The problem didn't develop over night, and by the time the citizens became aware of it it was a boiling cauldron of distrust and animosity. So it's difficult to predict what might have been the result of mediation.
A reasonable person might speculate that Mr. Menchaca had the department heads sufficiently intimidated that they were afraid to say something that might be construed as critical of Menchaca. Previous reports said he spent hours interviewing applicants for department heads, so he would have had ample opportunity to make a threat should he have been inclined to do it. So even with a mediator involved, the city employees might have been reluctant to say what they thought.
Would Menchaca have retaliated had someone criticized him? The command staff of the Midland Police Department certainly thought so. (See The Letter.) And there's that infamous quote hanging out there wherein he is supposed to have threatened department heads that he would "cut them off at the knees" if they went over his head to the public or to the City Council. Did he really say that? It's been been repeated enough times that he's had ample time to deny it if he thought no one would come forward to refute it. In fact, Newsroom Stew says the MR-T has an invitation out to him for an interview but is doubtful that it will happen.
I'm a big fan of Mayor Mike Canon. Canon is a modern day King Solomon as he forges compromise among the various parties who plead their cases before the City Council. I'm not a regular observer, but I did attend a City Council meeting April 10, 2007, and had the opportunity to see it happen twice in one morning. (See MPD Blue for other issues at that meeting).
One was a dispute between a developer who wanted to put a housing development in East Midland near Business I-20 and the people who lived in the area who opposed such a drastic change to their neighborhood. The neighborhood representative proposed some reasonable areas of compromise, and Mayor Canon sent the developer back to the drawing board to work out a way to keep the neighbors happy.
The second controversy was between backers of the La Entrada highway who wanted a City Council Resolution supporting it and some representatives of Big Bend communities who opposed it. Canon scribbled out an amendment to the resolution which satisfied both sides. (Council member Wes Perry complimented it, by the way.)
So it's not surprising that Canon believes in the power of mediation. It's probably too late now. But let's look to the future.
Mr. Menchaca's January 25, 2000, employment agreement can be downloaded from Stephanie Sparkman's site, and the contract was long on what the city would do for Menchaca and short on what Menchaca would do for the city. With so many people looking over City Attorney Keith Stretcher's shoulder this time then that situation will surely be corrected, and the next will probably look more like a pre-nup.
And for starters here's a modest proposal: Let's promote freedom of speech. The next employment contract should contain a strict prohibition, with some serious sanctions, against any effort by the City Manager to shush any criticism.
And if Mayor Canon runs for reelection, I'll be voting for him again.
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