City Hall: Not Detail-Oriented?

The city's new public information officer has arrived in the seventh year of the current administration, so one might think his hiring would be a fairly routine matter. But a comment at the May 7 agenda-fixing session makes  me wonder how much of a grip City Hall has on the details.

In a discussion on the city's residency rules, Personnel Director Karen Dabney said a request for a waiver will come before the council in June. The new public information officer is already on the job and lives in Trenton. Usually the only official waivers have been for employees who have been appointed by the mayor, with advice and consent of the governing body. I seemed to recall that the list of non-union employees, including cabinet members, was expanded when the last PIO was here in 2008-09 to include that title.

Just out of curiosity, I searched the Municipal Code for the title and found it under 2:5-6. The plot thickens after that. Some may recall that under the past administration, the job of deputy city administrator was changed from an ombudsman-like role to one in charge of economic development. However, the PIO title - which was granted by advice and consent - was not changed since 1970 and still has to do with the deputy administrator's office, at least on the books.

The title was vacated by way of de-funding the budget line for it many years ago. When Dan Damon was called the PIO, his official title was something else, but he was placed under the deputy city administrator.

The last PIO came from the PMUA to City Hall and worked with the local origination cable channel until she was let go in March 2009. The hiring of an IT director a couple of years ago led to creation of an IT & Media Division under the unwieldy and cumbersome Department of Administration, Finance, Health and Social Services. One of the division's tasks is "to regulate and supervise all media requirements of the city."

OK, so that would make the PIO a regular employee, still subject to residency rules, but not requiring advice and consent and therefore not a waiver by vote of the governmental body - I think.

Who cares?

Well, the very ad published to recruit a PIO gets the department wrong ("Administration, Finance, and Community Relations and Social Services"). Setting aside the apparent lapses of the previous administration in not cleaning up the code's provisions related to the deputy city administrator's office, the new one did not apparently follow through when creating the IT & Media Division.

There is no doubt that the city desperately needs better communication with the "press and public," as cited in the 1970 law. But if the new PIO is to succeed, the administration needs to meet him at least halfway, by getting basic facts straight, like whether he is an employee or cabinet-level staffer and where he is on the organizational chart. Those in City Hall need to help him initially to sort out the city's anomalies, such as its departments under the special charter and its system of east-west geography, for starters.

City Hall's clubby atmosphere over the past several years have sometimes led to a press-be-damned attitude that the PIO must mend, and he does not need to lose credibility over details such as where things are located, including his job. Give him a break, lend him a hand and soon the information gap will narrow from the gulf it has been for some time.

--Bernice