Leadership and "Grand Plans" - For four or five weeks now one of our local weekly newspapers has been reprinting front-page versions of essentially the same story, which goes something like this: "City Manager Mike McNees and County Manager Jim Ley cooked up a scheme in secret to create a recreation plan for the north county without talking to anyone, who the heck do they think they are, and who's in charge over there?!?!" (O.K., so that's my version of their story, but this is my blog. Read for yourself, you'll see I'm not far off.) Usually I'd just let it go, because we all know it's harder to fight the press than to fight City Hall. But I do feel it's important that the whole truth be told, so I will fill in some of the gaps here.

I can only speak for the city's side of the equation, but it has been an objective of the City Commission for at least 3 years to complete the spring training complex improvements that will be required to keep the Cincinnati Reds in town for another 20 years (which is something I'll have to put out for converstion in a future post.) We also have a "Parks and Connectivity" plan that the Commission adopted that calls for a major city park in eastern Sarasota, and standing orders also from the Commissioners to pursue all possible avenues for the creation of affordable housing units. In speaking with Mr. Ley, originally about the spring training issues and the competing demands for the county tourist tax, we started a conversation that eventually branched out to staffs from both agencies who looked at needs and assets on a wider scale. Ultimately a set of ideas was created that show what some of the options are if the community eventually chooses to embrace them. One of the assets discussed was the land that now serves as the county fairgrounds, but other options have been identified that exclude the fairgrounds, with the understanding that the destiny of the fairgrounds is certainly beyond the two Managers to determine, rather the fair board, county and community at large.

The fact is that before any of the ideas that have been bounced around even begin to take real shape there has to be a great deal more public discussion, and a number of very public decisions must be made. First, the legislature has to alocate spring training facility funds. The TDC and the County Commission have to go through a public hearing process for the allocation of tourist tax dollars. The recreational stakeholders have to weigh in on what they want for the future of their facilities, and the citizens at large have to weigh in on all of these issues. But every idea has to start somewhere.

Even more to the point made by our friends at the weekly, every bit of this conversation on the city's part has taken place pursuant to specific policy direction given by the City Commission. When shown the big picture ideas in a joint City/County Commission meeting, the Commissioners affirmed exactly that, and complimented both staffs for the cooperative and creative spirit they brought to the issue (which you certainly did not have the opportunity to read about.)

To cut to the bottom line, and the question raised in this week's edition about who it is that's exercising leadership at City Hall: On this issue I have certainly been the lead dog pulling the City's sled, but there's no question that it has been the City Commission standing on the back of the sled yelling "Mush!" and telling us where they want the sled to go.

When I was interviewing for the City Manager's position five years ago I heard and read a lot of conversation about how the community needed someone who would show "leadership" in the manager's chair. Ultimately many judge that leadership based on whether or not the sled is going where they personally want it to go, that's the nature of the business. But I have to believe that working together with our peers over at the county to generate good ideas to offer to address challenges of mutual concern beats the heck out of the alternative.