For your weekend listening pleasure

Lat night's episode of Shooting the Bull, featuring Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield, is now online.

Listen here, or subscribe to the podcast through iTunes.com.

thanks to everyone who sent in a question for Tom, either here, through Kevin's site, or via email. Sorry we didn't have enough time to ask them all.

Continue reading For your weekend listening pleasure

Shooting the Bull

Durham City Manager Tom Bonfield is going to be our guest on Shooting the Bull this week. The program airs Thursday at 7:30 on WXDU, 88.7 fm.

Got a question for Tom? Leave it in the comments and we'll try to get to it.

Continue reading Shooting the Bull

Budget

I don't really have an opinion as to whether the Mayor's proposal to come up with a budget that doesn't change the property tax rate is a good thing or not. Like many of you, i'm interested in seeing just what services get cut in the name of holding taxes steady, and hoping that federal stimulus money picks up some of the slack.

On the other hand, i'm sure Patrick Baker wishes that the mayor had been more up front and public about what he was willing to see the tax rate go to during last year's budget cycle. As you'll recall, Patrick Baker, then the city manager, put forth a pretty decent budget to the public, only to have Mayor Bell ride in on his white horse to save us from a larger tax hike.

I wondered then if Bell would be willing to treat his new hire the same way.

Guess not.

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The polite way of saying it

From Jim Wise's interview with City Manager Tom Bonfield, in today's N&O:

"The big picture is that I don't think the city has had a long, even mid-term, financial plan and put the decisions that are made on an annual basis in the context of what [they] mean long-term," he said.

For example, Durham's Capital Improvement Program for 2009-14 has 254 items, ranging from park improvements to making government buildings accessible to the disabled to rehabilitating the water system.

"There's no financing around it," he said of the program. "It has some money available, but nowhere near enough. ... So in essence it's not a six-year capital plan, it's a six-year wish list."

Continue reading The polite way of saying it

Right on time

Back in the day, one of my public policy professors opined that a new supervisor's window of opportunity for making significant organizational changes was 90 days. Try to do too much earlier than than, and you risked alienating the people who were going to be implementing your ideas because they would think you didn't know enough about how things really got done. Wait much longer than that, and people would think you didn't care or have any ideas worth carrying out.

Just three months into the job, City Manager Tom Bonfield is putting his brand on Durham.

On Thursday, Bonfield unveiled a reorganization of the city's administration to "promote departments working together."

Bonfield's plan aligns the city's 23 departments into three "teams" or "theme areas," each under a deputy city manager charged with "facilitating" inter-department cooperation.

"It isn't about controlling anything," it's about facilitating," he said.

I'm sure i'll have some uninformed and completely spurious opinion about the significance of these developments soon.

Continue reading Right on time

Gee thanks, Time/Warner

I'm sure i had something to say yesterday, but since my internet connection was down virtually all day, i have no idea what it was. Since the tech is due here in about an hour, i'm sure the connection will be working fine until 20 minutes after he leaves.

I hope you get a chance to listen to the podcast of our interview last night with Tom Bonfield, Durham's new city manager, on Shooting the Bull. Mr. Bonfield shares his first impressions of the city, and his vision for the Durham of the future. It'll be interesting to watch him working with our current City Council over the next year or two. Nothing against Patrick Baker, but it's been some time since Durham had a manager quite like our new guy.

Here's a question for you. I've snarked in the past about how the Mercer Group, the headhunters who managed the search for our new manager, should give us a discount on our next search, since they overlapped the Wichita, Kansas manager search onto our own. Mr. Bonfield confirmed last night that he was also in fact asked to interview for the then vacant position in Wichita as well as Durham. I don't have much experience int he "executive recruiting" field. But am i wrong to think that there's some ethical conflict here in taking money from two different cities at the same time to basically give them the same pool of candidates from which to choose? If there really is only one very small pool of qualified city managers, what value add does the search company bring to the table. Why not just contact the professional organization that city managers belong to and post your job openings there?

Continue reading Gee thanks, Time/Warner

Shooting the Bull

Kevin and i are pleased to host Tom Bonfield, Durham's new City Manager, on Shooting the Bull this Sunday evening at 7:30 pm, on WXDU, 88.7 fm. If you've got a question for Tom, drop us a line at ShootingTheBull AT gmail DOT com.

That's the same address to get your entry in to win a pair of passes to see the El Greco to Velazquez exhibit opening today at the Nasher Museum of Art. Time is running out. Entries are due tomorrow at noon. Tell us in 50 words or less why you want the tickets for your chance to win.

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It's not a bug, it's a feature

As reports in the HS and N&O note this morning, new city manager Tom Bonfield remarked during his meet the press session yesterday that "The streets are in terrible shape. Public Works isn't going to be happy about me saying that, but there are a lot of bumpy roads, and things like that that need to be dealt with."

Tom, Tom, Tom.

Those aren't "bumpy roads."

That's our traffic calming and pedestrian safety program in action.

Welcome to Durham.

Continue reading It's not a bug, it's a feature

Welcome to Durham, Tom Bonfield

I assume that making sure bond money is spent for, you know, voter approved bond projects will be part of your portfolio.

Continue reading Welcome to Durham, Tom Bonfield