A public building doesn’t make a city respectable – a city’s respectable, high standards and open government make a public building worthy.
It’s more than odd that, literacy notwithstanding, an editorial board would contend – as one did recently about Milton, Wisconsin – that Milton’s new [city] offices suggest professional, progressive city (subscription req’d):
Milton residents have reason to beam about their new City Hall and police station.
The offices are so new that workers were adjusting door locks and downspouts while Mayor Brett Frazier and City Administrator Jerry Schuetz gave a tour Wednesday. Boxes from Monday’s move had yet to be unpacked or discarded. Seeding and landscaping awaited.
Milton is, after all, a city struggling economically, and one that somehow thought it wise to make its police chief a city administrator and now a newly-created public relations specialist for Milton’s school district.
Here’s how a newspaperman who covered that city for twenty years assessed the transfer (again, subscription req’d):
Because of this history of [district] frugality, it surprised me when I saw the district job posting for a new public relations position—but not because of the need in this age of competitive school choice. I was surprised at the position’s $80,000-per-year salary. It can be argued the district would have attracted many highly qualified candidates from the public relations professional world at two-thirds that salary.
When I learned former Milton Chief of Police and current City Administrator Jerry Schuetz was offered the position, my inner red flags of cynicism went up—not because I question Mr. Schuetz’s abilities but because these are questions that once were expected of me by taxpayers of Milton. Was this all preordained? Is this what used to be termed a “good old boy” hire?
Those questions were only intensified when The Gazette broke the story early this week and the article, seemingly, was all about this position being able to allow Mr. Schuetz to find “balance” in his personal life.
No, a new city hall doesn’t make a city modern – true modernity comes from the high standards of a community.
To think otherwise is to fall into the amazement of Oklahoma!‘s fictional visitor to Kansas City, convinced as he mistakenly is that “they gone about as fer as they can go.”