When the Winter Haven City Commission takes up the city manager's retirement tonight, it will amount to referendum on the future of Carl Cheatham, who has served the city for 13 years. The city manager's tenure isn't the only thing at stake.
To a larger degree, tonight's events will test the judgment, fortitude and motives of the five commissioners.
Cheatham should offer to retire in a timely manner. If he doesn't the commission should set a timely schedule for his retirement and begin seeking a replacement.
Few who are closely attuned to city events question seriously whether it is time for Cheatham to go. But he has asked to stay on for another year or so, perhaps even through 2001. It can be difficult for elected officials to look across the table and tell a manager it is time to go. But they must.
While not the reason to act, they should keep in mind that failure to set Cheatham's retirement in motion will result in a long hot summer in which an election campaign focuses on the record and competence of the city manager and the judgment, fortitude and motives of the commissioners.
The topics for summer discussion would be many: Cost over-runs at the Chain of Lakes Stadium and elsewhere; an expensive -- and quite revealing -- due process hearing to fire a couple of Leisure Services employees; years of failure in code enforcement; a widely acknowledged absence of effective planning; egregious problems in building inspections. There's also the Dome that they couldn't paint correctly and that has deteriorated from city neglect. And a host of city employees appear on the verge of voting for a union, which would be costly to taxpayers and an embarrassment to someone at City Hall.
Even the city manager's performance evaluation has been botched. First one wasn't done for several years. When public pressure triggered an evaluation process, it resulted in a Cheatham promise to provide goals in 30 days. Not surprisingly, the goals took much longer than 30 days. What was submitted was poorly done, if not irrelevant.
There's more shortcomings at City Hall, of course, and they are likely to be explored in greater detail by candidates and reporters and gadflies if Cheatham's retirement is protracted.
But the litany of recent problems isn't the only reason commissioners should act decisively to make a change. The most compelling reason is that Cheatham is not an effective executive, certainly not one to fit these times and the environment in which Winter Haven finds itself today.
The mayor said recently that Cheatham has done everything the commissioners asked him to do. Well, one would expect that. But the point is that much more is needed. What is needed -- and can be found in many cities -- is not only a strong public administrator, but one who is entrepreneurial, who anticipates the need for and recommends policy changes, who seizes opportunities and who pulls together the key players and orchestrates meaningful change.
On Thursday evening, many residents will gather at Nora Mayo Hall to celebrate and discuss changes and progress under way in the city. The areas include a Community Redevelopment Agency downtown and another one in Florence Villa; downtown design inspired by Main Street; the Citi-Center about to replace the Winter Haven mall; lakes improvement projects; and aspects of the recently completed visioning effort.
It is remarkable, but true, that Cheatham's fingerprints are on none of those things to any serious degree. The city is being shaped, but the city manager is a bystander for the most part, one given to reacting as necessary while attempting to avoid controversy.
In short, City Hall isn't working.
Our view is that it is due to the failure of executive leadership. If that isn't the case, then a change in commissioners is clearly in order.
