What can we expect from CITCOM in 2009?

They're laughing at Royal Oak

The written response to VersagiVoice's report of the 06 April 09 CITCOM meeting began within an hour of the update. Disturbingly, comments by civic activists whose names many residents would recognize -- men and women who have cordial working relationships with elected and appointed city officials -- fear reprisals of one sort or another if they are identified. Worse, some posit deeper suspicions than can reasonably be inferred from my CITCOM & WROK reports. Below are samples of thoughtful comments from responsible individuals, all of whom I know personally. -- FJV

§ Thanks for the update. Just to let you know, Richard Wilson is not contracted to the city through CMN. He has his own company, Camco, which contracts directly with the city. -- Deb [Deborah Anderson serves as Royal Oak's liaison to Community Media Network.]

§ [From VersagiVoice report] What Andrzejak described as a "cordial exchange" was definitely considered a threat by the WROK committee, after hearing the Chair's report on the meeting which included Andrzejak, Miller, and Interim City Manager Johnson.

Frank--Just between you and me, I wonder how Miller was made aware of this meeting. Was it the City Manager (he said he didn't know Steve was coming), the WROK Rep (I rather doubt it), or Mike A.? Someone thought it was necessary that he be there. Given Steve's reputation I could certainly understand how the WROK rep might feel "threatened". I DO NOT wish my name being used with this observation if you should so decide to use it.

§ I was at the meeting on Monday and have been looking forward to your update to see if your perceptions of the events at the table were similar to mine. They were. In a private hall discussion with the gentleman from WROK, there was no doubt in his mind that their funding was being threatened. My question for you is, given the bold and blunt answers from Mr. Constant (correct name? ), what are your thoughts on an internal investigation? Although you correctly and fairly point out that Ginotti's on-air presence raises reasonable questions of fairness, elected officials cannot do as they see fit to achieve their objectives.

§ There is a lot brewing at the city commission, and the electorate is rightly soured.

Voting blocs on CITCOM?
Review the minutes of city commission meetings over the years, and it is obvious that easily 80% of the commission's decisions are unanimous. Review tabulations of split votes, and it is equally obvious that although there are recognizable clusters, most of those votes seem based on differing views about the issues (Internet filters and ice arena committee, for example). That said, there are identifiable clusters of mindsets.

The Threesome: About relationships between the Administration and CITCOM and about selling city parks, as examples, Andrzejak, Miller, and Semchena tend to be of one mind.
The Duet: Ellison and Lelito show up on the same side often, on a variety of issues.
The Lone Ranger: Drinkwine shows up most frequently as the only one voting "no," on issues as diverse as Beaumont's rezoning request and the rules for transferring enterprise funds to the general fund.
The Majority: This term refers to those four CITCOM members who are not included in The Threesome: Drinkwine*, Ellison, Ginotti** and Lelito.

*Drinkwine has recently voted often enough with The Threesome to cause bloggers at www.royaloaksoundoff.com to create the acronym DAMS, for Drinkwine, Andrzejak, Miller, Semchena.

** For a few months after Semchena joined CITCOM, Ginotti frequently voted with The Threesome, but that grouping was called The Majority during those months. I may have referred to them once or twice as The Foursome, but the nickname didn't stick.

Conclusion: The mindset-clusters characterized above are real enough to be considered valid and should be monitored, but the split-vote tabulations make it clear that about most issues CITCOM members vote as individuals, not as members of their cluster. See How To Watch City Commission Meetings.

Is the sour mood contagious?
City Hall observers talk to each other and exchange friendly observations. It matters not which "side" of the issue they are on. At the moment, March 2009, the common thread running through these discussions is concern, even fear, that the sour mood at CITCOM is filtering throughout local government. Recent meetings of the ZBA and the DDA are being talked about. VersagiVoice is occasionally lobbied by the "sides," as about the current Bordine's controversy, for example.

In this update and ongoing, I'll monitor and comment about developments, granting equal access on this website to responsible opposing viewpoints.

L'affaire Bordine's
CONTEXT: Last year, the Zoning Board of Appeals granted Bordine's a temporary variance, permitting the nursery to mount a sales area in a portion of the unoccupied industrial zone, best visualized as being north of Fourteen Mile and Coolidge. English Gardens took legal action seeking to prohibit setting up a nearby competitor. Circuit Court ruled in the ZBA's favor. This year, the ZBA refused to renew the temporary variance. Last week, VersagiVoice reported speculation that "the fix was in" to account for the reversal, and residents who agree with each other about most civic/political matters are at odds about this issue.

NOW: Proponents for all sides (there are more than two) are claiming that because of a possible legal action they can't publicly say much that will explain it all when finally revealed. In the meantime, here's a sample of what's being tossed around:

Bordine's should/is going to sue the ZBA. . . . Money has lined somebody's pocket. . . . Why wasn't Bordine's request denied when the company appeared before the Board in August? . . . Zoning is zoning, and the area is zoned Industrial. The initial variance shouldn't have been granted. . . . [Then it gets personal] Individuals at all levels of involvement are targeted (commissioners, ZBA members, lawyers, residents) . . . Grand Sakwa is in there somewhere, and those guys on CITCOM are anti-Sakwa. . . . Inappropriate, possibly illegal, "musical chairs" were played at the ZBA table.. . . . People are positioning themselves and their friends for the coming election. . . . People directly involved are trying to persuade each other behind the scenes.

There's more, but that's what I remember at the moment. Some of all this is funny; too much of it is ugly. Among the ugliness are political and legal repercussions and implications which need to be addressed in detail -- but slowly and responsibly. Friendships will end before this is over. -- 25 Mar 09

Public officials have the right and need to communicate away-from-the-table
Some of my more intense readers are suggesting I've become tunnel-visioned, obsessive, in my "preaching" about the need to distinguish between content and personality when issues are being debated. Good. They're paying attention.

Focusing on Royal Oak, my concern is that the intellectual and emotional churning which is so obviously a part of the ongoing dialogue and speculation about Hoover's and Quisenberry's departures can poison 2009's local elections for commissioners and mayor.

Unreasonable suspicion exists about away-from-the-table communication among elected and appointed officials. In, thankfully, a tiny proportion of the public, there are demands that no closed meetings ever be allowed about any matter. Applying that mindset to CITCOM, these extremists insist that the closed session which precedes each CITCOM meeting is inappropriate. Whether or not one shares that mindset, it does make sense to look closely at the faces of the officials as they come out that door from Room 309 into the Commission Chambers. There have been occasions when what happened in 309 definitely affected the tone of the CITCOM meeting itself.

Nevertheless, I defend the need and right of public officials to confer among themselves about complex or controversial issues without sharing every thought and feeling with their constituents. They can email each other, telephone each other, have lunch with a colleague or two, even hold multiple sub-quorum meetings without, in my mind, violating the spirit or the letter of the Open Meeting Act. Then, at public meetings, the deliberations can be summarized and their decision voted upon.

Surely, away-from-the-table deliberations can be abused. On balance, though, it would waste time and try the public's patience to have every nuance about every fine-tuning detail (think Obama) debated at The Table.

To return to the Hoover-ousting: Only those voters who were paying no attention at all could not know that it was a matter of time before he left, voluntarily or not. Citizens could not be expected to anticipate, though, that the cause celebre which led to his ouster would be his handling of Quisenberry's proposal to retire but remain chief of police as a contract employee.

Except for understandable human curiosity, should it really matter to the public who first used that issue to make the move to oust Hoover?; who called whom, when?; how long it took to agree to declare unanimity? Well, some suggest that the public decision to adopt the Separation Agreement came too suddenly, without any public awareness that Hoover was in immediate jeopardy. Asked about that, City Attorney Dave Gillam replied:

Michigan's Open Meetings Act requires that all decisions (as defined in the Act) by a public body (as defined in the Act) take place at a meeting that is open to the public. The decision to end Tom Hoover's employment with the City was made by way of the Separation Agreement that was unanimously approved by the City Commission on Monday night.

That narrowly focused legalistic paragraph is obviously too skimpy to satisfy the suspicious, especially those who have already assigned unworthy motives to this or that individual involved. They complain of not having heard of the police chief's proposal. They want to know how and why the decision was reached to remove Hoover, not just that the commission publicly approved what it had "privately" decided to do.

Which brings us back to the desperate need for each of us to separate substance from style, issue from personality, as we evaluate civic and political debate and performance as November approaches. Otherwise, it is not inconceivable that the local campaign could become off-focus and nasty. -- 25 Feb 09

What can we expect from CITCOM in 2009?
For the year 2008, city hall observers give the city commission a C-plus overall, and an F on budget matters. (Finance Director Don Johnson gets a B.) For their individual performance of their duties, individuals are graded B; for their interpersonal relationships at The Table, they get a C. With that in mind, VersagiVoice readers asked for a summary of how city hall observers characterize (a) the individuals and (b) the "coalitions," groupings, as reflected in voting. The following texts and tabulation address that dual request.

Like or dislike an elected official
It should make no difference when addressing issues
Whether because it was the last CITCOM meeting of the year or because it was a long and wearisome meeting, my report out of the 15 December 2008 session drew more than the usual number of comments about the individual elected officials. Some tied their comments to my earlier suggestions that those officials might on occasion justifiably ignore input from ill-informed residents. Too many of those readers find it impossible to listen neutrally to the words of an official they dislike, with or without specific cause.

Over the years, I've "measured" voters' feelings about CITCOM members by playing "Let's go around The Table." We briefly characterize each official, then compare notes. Starting from the right side, the following tabulation summarizes how current officials are variously perceived by me and by those who dislike or like them.

Official	VersagiVoice	Dislike	Like
Miller	Sees everything through a budget lens. Loses laymen with his technical financial talk.	Arrogant, rude, fakes anger to make his point. Reminds us repeatedly how smart he is about city finances.	Courageous. Has saved city $-millions. Has people skills but chooses not to use them during meetings. Face it, nobody else at the table, except perhaps Semchena, understands the budget.
Andrzejak	The commission's historian and protocol authority. Seeks always to provide context for residents.	Your term "Puritan" is right on. Unreasonable about his personal pet peeves, like alcohol, dancing, Internet filters. Wants to be the City Manager, the Police Chief, and head of every city Department.	VersagiVoice is unfair to Mike. He is both principled and reasonable. What you call "micromanaging" is just solid legislative oversight of the bureaucrats. If Hoover feels offended, tough.
Ginotti	Issue-focused. Often the swing vote. Now controls his tendency to talk too much.	An opportunist. Most unprepared of the seven until the debate is well under way. Plays to the camera more than most.	Agrees with what you call the "threesome" sometimes, with the others (Democrats?) other times. Does not feel he has to speak on every issue, if he has nothing to add.
Ellison	Reasoned. Steady hand, generally unruffled -- but too nice	Weak, Ineffective. Too closely tied to the Administration. Wanders a bit when he does join a debate.	A Gentleman. By not pounding the gavel as much as you'd like, he lets some of his colleagues show their true colors and make jackasses of themselves.
Drinkwine	Persistent and consistent. Long-winded but ultimately sharply focused.	Stubborn, a prima donna. Is forever reminding us that he used to be cop. The most disrespectful and discourteous guy up there.	Straightforward, Principled. Yeah, he sometimes takes forever to make his point, but when he's finished you know how and why he reached his decisions.
Semchena	Legalistic approach to problem-solving. Uses questions, rather than statements to make his points.	Excessively obsessed with details. Can't forget he's a lawyer. Behaves as he would in a courtroom. Makes it clear he does not trust or like Staff. But he and his office weren't liked when he was City Attorney.	Thorough. Because he was City Attorney, he knows how things are done in the back room, so you can't slip anything by him. Like Miller, he prods for more information than is first delivered by Staff.
Lelito	Timid or thoughtful, he seldom participates in debates.	Indifferent, inattentive. Unsure. The job is over his head. Just taking up space at The Table. Look at the frequent Lelito-Ellison pairings in your Split Votes table.	Quiet. Focused, Doesn't speak just to be heard. Doesn't see the need for emotional posturing, especially after everything has been said. Has his own practical interests, like a smoking ban.

Why this matters
Those who think Drinkwine acts as though he is still a cop, or that Miller thinks too highly of himself, or that Ellison takes his orders from Hoover, or that Semchena is obsessed with making Hoover look bad, simply stop listening to that individual. Especially if -- as too many of the officials do -- the individual rambles too long when asking a question or making a point, the voter who dislikes him misses that official's positive contribution to a dialogue. Worse, the voter may let his gut-feeling overcome his judgment about that individual's contribution.

It works the other way, too. If you like the official, he can do no wrong, and you automatically (read: unthinkingly) disagree with anyone who opposes him.

On the other hand, think how really dull CITCOM meetings would be if they were entirely intellectual.

What about CITCOM's 'coalitions'?
Spend four minutes reviewing VersagiVoice's tabulation of split votes, and you'll come away with apparently contradictory impressions. On the one hand, there are recognizable groupings of two or three individuals. On the other hand, it is equally clear that most split votes result from differences of opinion over issues.

City Hall observers went on the alert in January 2008, watching to see what impact newly elected Chuck Semchena would have on deliberations. Although commission elections are nonpartisan, all but one member of the current commission is a self-identified Democrat or Republican. For the first few months, it seemed that Semchena had added a fourth to the conservative trio of Andrzejak, Ginotti, and Miller. Then -- for principled or personal/political reasons praised by his friends and deplored by his enemies -- Ginotti seemed to pull away from that "coalition" and has increasingly become a swing vote.

The result is a new configuration of coalitions, with a "threesome" composed of Andrzejak, Miller, and Semchena and a "foursome" which includes Drinkwine, Ellison, Ginotti, and Lelito. It is important to recognize that the groupings have almost nothing to do with party affiliation. The difference between the two is mostly a reflection of their attitudes toward the Administration, in general, and toward City Manager Hoover, in particular. Those attitudes come through in the questions asked, the services demanded, the deadlines set, the tone of the interactions, and, increasingly, in public charges of incompetence and open disapproval -- and subsequent rebuttal of those charges.

This is a good place to reply to generalized questions about VersagiVoice which take the form of: "Are you for or against the threesome?" " Make up your mind about ____ (Drinkwine, Ellison, Ginotti, Hoover, whomever)." Such questions come from confusing disagreement with dislike. With the threesome, for example, I agree about the Grand Sakwa project and disagree re drinking and dancing and massage parlors. The same issue-focused approach applies to individuals. Even when I comment on behavior rather than about issue, I'm sure I have both praised and criticized everyone at The Table. -- FJV

The terms of Mayor Ellison and Commissioners Ginotti, Lelito, and Miller end in 2009. Loyalists who want them to be re-elected and opponents who hope for a "housecleaning" tell VersagiVoice they'll be watching CITCOM deliberations and individual/coalition behavior with increased intensity. And I've been told that we need a couple of women up there. --31 Dec 08

Grand Sakwa project revived?
It's possible that the Sakwa issue will remain in the public eye for a while.
Indeed, the last item on CITCOM's last 2008 meeting was intended to re-open discussion about the proposed development at Coolidge and Thirteen Mile. The attempt got nowhere and was left hanging. Reacting to questions about why Commissioners Andrzejak, Miller, and Semchena did not comment, after initially bringing the matter to The Table in October, Andrzejak provided the following statement.

I've communicated with Commissioners Miller and Semchena .We could support the Grand Sakwa proposal if we were guaranteed informed input, and viewpoints of our neighbors, recreation advocates, and anyone else impacted by this proposal. We support multiple Public Hearings once the proposal could be fleshed out. The proposal must include specific options of locations to relocate recreational assets, the price of the property, and ensure that the proceeds would be utilized for recreation and senior programs. Residents are entitled to this information prior to the Public Hearings. The motion presented by Commissioner Ginotti did not receive our support because it did not guarantee that all of this would occur.

VersagiVoice has several times teased that there must be graft and corruption at the commission table, because no sane person would, for a measly $20 per meeting, put up with all the work and abuse elected officials endure. Citizen reaction to the Grand Sakwa project makes it clear that a small minority suspects graft and corruption "somewhere in there among all that he said/they said who-knew-what-when mess."

So it's possible that the Sakwa thing will remain in the public eye for a while. That aside, I challenge the suspicious among my readers to cite examples, over the decades, of a commissioner or mayor or city manager or department head who was guilty of materially or financially benefiting from improper behavior tied to her/his office. Suspicions alone don't count -- as about former mayors or former commissioners guiding deals to friends they had before or after serving office. -- FJV

Ferndale, Birmingham laughing at Royal Oak
Discussions about local political affairs, especially when dealing with the city commission, frequently bring forth statements which can be paraphrased as, "Geez, I know all those guys. Individually they're great, but as a group . . . " About as often, despite admitted likes and dislikes of this or that elected official, one hears concern that the institutional mindset expected of such governmental bodies is -- in the case of this 44th Royal Oak City Commission -- poisoned by personal animosities. "Bad blood" is a disheartening term too often encountered.

Worse, some of those who gain access to away-from-the-table communication among officials report that the pettiness and animosity erupt there, too.

Recently, for example, one commissioner requested (some say "demanded") a private interview with former Commissioner Pat Capello, after City Manager Hoover recommended her appointment to the Downtown Development Authority. The proposed appointment was somewhat controversial because Capello had -- during Public Comment at a CITCOM meeting -- suggested the entire DDA Board be dismissed for their attempt to replace Commissioner Ginotti as emcee of the Holiday Parade. Unusual as it was, the request/demand could easily have been deliberated as a procedural issue. Instead, the tone of the debate quickly reflected the personal animosities which are increasingly publicly displayed at CITCOM meetings.

For some, Hoover's appointment also smelled a bit because it came at the same time as a perception that the term-limited sole retailer on the DDA was denied an extension, even though there remains an opening on the board. Those who don't like Hoover go even further, suggesting his appointment is part of his attempt to control DDA operations, to get the city's hands on DDA money. Hence, reaction to the request to interview Capello both resulted from and increased the institutional tension between City Hall and the DDA.

A second matter was also addressed pettily in recent away-from-the-table communication: Mayor Ellison had alerted Hoover that he might not be back from vacation in time to attend the 05 January meeting. Ellison also alerted Mayor Pro Tem Ginotti, who apparently reached out to his fellow commissioners for any suggestions re the agenda.

One commissioner, though, asked Hoover, "When did you become aware of the Mayor's absence from last night's meeting, and why were we not informed about this?" Ginotti's attempt to explain the time sequence led to complaints that it is the City Manager, not the Mayor Pro Tem, who should have alerted the commissioners. Hoover commented that after Ellison told him that he was alerting Ginotti, "I don't believe it is my position to announce anything otherwise before the meeting."

VersagiVoice hasn't bothered to check whether protocol was ignored, but it is hard not to be disappointed that our leaders take time to fuss about something that had/has no substantive bearing on conducting the city's business. These guys can't seem to stop letting personal animosities distort their deliberations, whether the matter being addressed is serious or trivial.

Add to all that the snide comments offered for publication by this or that commissioner about Hoover's desire to acquire employment in Florida.

It is sad and worrisome for Royal Oakers to hear these things. Residents of nearby cities like Ferndale and Madison Heights and Birmingham, who have long resented Royal Oak's dominant image in Southeastern Michigan, are laughing at us. The fatal thrust? Royal Oak's City Commission has been mentioned in the same breath as Detroit's City Council. -- FJV: Jan 2009