FS Directors Micromanaging its Department Heads

Submitted by RobertM on Tue, 05/29/2012 - 11:00pm

The Fort Smith board of directors is forcing departmental budget cuts, and then slapping one of the most successful department heads as he tries to achieve optimal operation.

Department of Sanitation director Baridi Nkokheli has made a valiant effort to improve his department’s operations by upgrading to automated trash collection. However, some neighborhoods don’t want machines driving down their streets; they want a swarm of young men out there heaving and lifting heavy garbage cans. One neighborhood petitioned and successfully quashed improvement. Now other neighborhoods are doing the same, and some of the city directors want to use a choose-your-own approach to trash collection.

If stifling the sanitation improvements succeeds, then Police Chief Kevin Lindsey is on notice; the next petition will be to do away with those pesky automated traffic lights and return our brave police personnel to the streets to direct traffic. There’s no need to stop there. After that comes the US Post Office. In my day, the postal workers didn’t have those gas-guzzling trucks; they walked and carried a leather bag on their shoulder. And we liked it that way! That's ridiculous, of course, but the current actions of some directors make as much sense.

I urge the Fort Smith board of directors to stop micromanaging its department heads – especially when they are following your directive and on the way to obvious improvements.

Five Star:

Comments

Not all want a swarm of young men

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 05/29/2012 - 11:43pm.

Not all want a swarm of young men heaving heavy trash cans in their alleys but they do want the trash picked up in the alley. Look at how it is being done on the automated routes. Some routes have a one armed bandit with one driver picking up on their curb then other times some routes have a rear load truck equipped with flippers and 3 men to dump their city supplied trash cart. Then a truck with 3 men picks up their recycle, then and other truck comes along and get the yard waste with another 3 men. Lets look at alley pick up. Now the owners has a bunch of small cans instead of a larger city owned cart that the men have to pick up individually and dump. The rear load truck could be dumping larger trash carts with out manual lifting. Then another day the same rear load truck used on the curb routes with 3 men comes down the alley to pick up the smaller recycle cans manually since they are not the covered city carts the trucks can pick up. Then another day a truck with 3 men comes down the alley to pick up yard waste. The real missing factor is the city owned trash carts in the alley. The semi automated rear load trucks could be replaced with Alley-Gator trucks designed for alleys mounted on the same chassis as current tucks to reduce maintenance if there was a desire to have a one man truck. I believe compassion needs to be shown to the sanitation workers by providing trash cars the truck can be picked up in the alley and show compassion to the home owners by providing carts that are hard for animals to tip over and have lids attached to keep water and animals out. It would also reduce the amount of containers the sanitation workers would have to empty and no more picking up soggy wet trash bags by sanitation workers.

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Technology for the directors but not for the citizens

Submitted by RobertM on Tue, 05/29/2012 - 11:44pm.

As an afterthought – how ironic that some of the directors are considering keeping the DOS in antiquation with information that they access on their latest-in-technology iPads.

Does anything really surprise you?

Submitted by The Avenger (not verified) on Wed, 05/30/2012 - 8:17am.

The BOD are a collective joke. Decent people separately but get them together and it becomes a grab all free for all at taxpayers expense. Ipads vs. manual trash? Who negotiated their copier contract if it costs 25 cents to make a copy? Insurance issues? still arguing trash?

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I concur with RobertM

Submitted by convivial on Wed, 05/30/2012 - 9:17am.

This has been a Chicken Little uproar from the onset...and we know the list of characters who fell in behind. Bravo to the directors who instead want the city's ducks in a row. Progress as Promised, I believe was promised. Directors please! Be guided by the accountant's pencil and not the petitioner's pen

At the core are the biggest quacks in town...

Submitted by Generation4 on Wed, 05/30/2012 - 1:51pm.

..this is not to say they can't sometimes drag a few others in with them. They plan, they're connected, and they've never missed a meeting. The unenforceable except for that house they really want to take away from someone, International Property Maintenance Code, the parking fiasco, the doggy ordinance that has by now almost reached out to PETA are all examples of what they have been able to do. Now it's a trashcan out front that's causing the current bought of excruciating snuggies with this ilk. It's nothing else no matter what they come up with..it's the front. A crowd at meetings is one thing but a well planned crowd quite something different to handle.

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Directors are beholden to the city - not to the individual

Submitted by RobertM on Fri, 06/01/2012 - 10:04am.

Many of the automation opponents have valid arguments of the added inconvenience. It would not be fair to challenge another person’s statement of how they are affected. However, it’s a rare overall improvement or other step forward that doesn’t adversely affect some people. Those who are adversely affected have a responsibility to tell their side for the sake of informed decisions. Then, when all the information is in, the directors who are charged with the responsibility of the whole have a responsibility to make the decision that best suits the whole today and in years to come. We’ll never get past Go – much less collect our $200 – if we fail to view broadly and to the future.