Two weeks before Toledo City Council approved the
2008 general fund operating budget Tuesday night, Councilman Joe
McNamara had questions about the number of staffers working on the 22nd
floor of Government Center: the mayor's office.
The document Mr. McNamara received after two weeks was a one-page
spreadsheet listing the name, salary, and department of the 24 people
stationed on Mayor Carty Finkbeiner's floor.
The matter became an issue March 11 when Mr. McNamara had questions
about the mayor's office's proposed budget, which was presented with
funding for nine employees.
A recent request by The Blade for a number of e-mails and executive
summaries of meetings regarding an economic development project took
more than two weeks to produce.
There are nine people under the department of development, three for
the board of community relations, and the city's Web master, who serves
as the mayor's spokesman when Mr. Schwartz is not in the office.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/artikkel?&Dato=20080328&Kategori=NE...
Joe . Couldn't you have simply gone upstairs and taken a headcount on your own. I bet it would have taken you all of 10 minutes.
I do agree that the mayors staff like to play games and string people on. Any request made should not take more than 3 days total to answer.
you can tell the Mayor's policy is to interfere with the flow of information - has anyone forgotten the picture of his office trying to hold the door closed to the reporters they didn't like?
That's just an abuse of power. They might not like what people say - or they may feel uncomfortable that there is criticism, but that's no excuse to manipulate the release of necessary information or restrict access by the press.
There is a long standing pattern of behavior here. It's only new to Joe.
I directly requested of Brian Schwartz an employee file and all notes and docs pertaining to this employee under the freedom of information act......not a single piece has yet to be made available.
I know why tho.... the former employee in question had problems with Fink re: his comments to her and about her relating to her faith and other issues. She left the City not long after he took over as mayor again. Ironicly, she is now in Wood county and living in a very nice house...hum.......
Kinda makes one wonder why the webmaster is not in IT and not the Mayor's office.
Kinda a shell game with the funds and budgeting and fiscal oversight of the city is called into question by this report, in my opinion.
No, the administration does not like criticism and so on and is loathe to releases information unless pestered about it.
I asked for copies of the secret shopper report for the hotels and it was like I was askng for state secrets.
Got the reports about the same time they were released to the press. Took about 10 days.
"Kinda makes one wonder why the webmaster is not in IT and not the Mayor's office."
I am almost certain that the webmaster isn't actually an IT person.