Making Friends and Influencing People?

On Wednesday night, the Highland Heights Charter Commission decided which proposed Charter language changes should appear on the November ballot. One of their proposed changes: staggering and extending Council terms to 4 years.

That’s a very big change for the city---one that’s been voted down, repeatedly, every single time it’s been on the ballot.  To-date, residents have preferred our current system---Council members have 2 years terms, and they all run for re-election at the same time--- an arrangement that ensures accountablility to residents.

The discussion about changing Council terms got me thinking about what it takes to be a truly good and effective Council member.

Basically, I think that takes four things:  (1) being responsive to constituents (not only answering phone calls and reading email, but following up with residents about their concerns); (2) taking time to read and think about the material sent out in the weekly Council packets before showing up at Council meetings;  (3) having the good sense to know when to take a stand on issues and when to compromise and/or admit defeat; and (4) embracing negotiation as a way to reach consensus.

 Unfortunately, Councilman Frank Legan demonstrated real weakness in skills # 3 and #4 at last Tuesday’s Council meeting.  Legan tends to be pretty dogged in taking stands and pursuing his own ideas---to the point of becoming an obstructionist when he doesn’t get his way. For example:

• In the fall of 2009, Legan supported a proposed plan to use tax dollars to subsidize a now-defunct, privately owned Alpha Drive athletic club. Council considered the proposal---and the extremely problematic contract that the city was expected to sign as part of the deal--- and decided not to pursue the matter, as did all of the other cities that were asked to participate.
  Did Legan react gracefully? No, not at all. He attacked his peers, criticizing them for allegedly not letting the club’s representatives make a presentation to Council about the questionable plan.
  http://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/2009/10/should-we-be-team-energetic.html

• Despite prohibitively high restoration costs (a structural engineer hired by the city estimated that it would cost $773,000 just to bring the building up to code),  Legan (along with Councilman Ed Hargate) was adamantly against tearing down the decrepit, substandard Old Church Building (OCB) that sat in what is now the city’s new municipal complex greenspace.
  At Legan’s request, Council agreed in the fall of 2009 to hold off making a decision about the OCB’s future, giving Legan more time to identify a use for the building and to come up with viable plan to pay for its restoration and operational costs.
  When he was unable to come up with a concrete plan for saving the OCB, Legan focused his efforts on delaying the vote. He refused to discuss the building’s demolition and, once again, he responded by attacking his peers. He accused them of  “being hasty” and rushing to judgment---even though (thanks, in part, to Legan) more than two years passed before Council finally voted to tear the OCB down (for less than $30,000).
  
  http://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/2009/10/renovating-old-church-building-on-city.htmlhttp://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/2010/09/decision-time.html

• Legan went into attack mode again on Tuesday night, after Council President Scott Mills announced that there did not appear to be any interest in pursuing a proposal that Legan had been pushing since last year. Legan’s most recent proposal entailed paying an outside company $400 a month to host online, live-streaming of Council meetings. 
  Council’s tepid reaction to Legan’s plan may be explained, in part, by the fact that Council is already spending close to $6,000 this year to replace its failing analogue recording system with a digital one. And then again, another problem may be that Legan has not done any research to determine whether residents are even interested in paying for live, on-line streaming of Council meetings and/or whether there are more cost-effective ways to make Council meetings accessible to residents who don’t want to attend Council meetings in person.
  When he heard Mills’ announcement, Legan did what’s he done before: he went into attack mode. Legan insisted (as is his right) that the matter be added to next week’s Committee of the Whole (COW) meeting. Legan made clear that he wanted the item on the agenda not because he wanted one last opportunity to pitch his plan, but because he intended to try to strong-arm his fellow Council members into “say(ing) on the record why” they don’t support it.

Talk about NOT making friends and influencing people.

No doubt Councilman Frank Legan gets very frustrated when his fellow Council members don’t respond enthusiastically to his ideas.  Still, it’s hard to see how his aggressiveness and obstructionism will lead to better collaboration and support for his ideas in the future. Apparently engaging in quiet discussion and one-on-one negotiation just isn’t his style.

 As my dad used to say: “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.”

Despite his many years of experience as a Council member, that seems one concept that Frank Legan has never truly embraced.

Read updates about: increased crime, neighbor feuds, a proposed “Get-Go” gas station, and the proposed “Park Barn Pavillion” project at http://highlandheightsohiohappenings.blogspot.com/