Whitewater’s city manager, Kevin Brunner, seems oddly inadequate to the task of managing a city of fourteen thousand people. His response to complaints about Whitewater’s urban forestry program, a successor program to our former tree commission, shows that he has trouble responding maturely to simple, lawful criticism. The mere act of citizens’ sending a letter to a state agency led Brunner to suggest abolition of a citizens’ commission.
At Whitewater’s Tuesday, June 15th Common Council meeting, council member Jim Olsen introduced a proposal to abolish Whitewater’s urban forestry commission. City manager Brunner wrote and spoke on behalf of abolition. Council wisely declined to follow that over-reaction to non-threatening citizen correspondence with the State of Wisconsin.
(Quick note: I have no connection to either of the citizens who wrote to the state agency. None whatever. Other than once reading about Johnny Appleseed, I have no knowledge of trees, either. Longtime readers will also recall that I once proposed removing the trees in town an[d] planting varieties of cactus. I still think it would simplify life here.)
References.
A recording of the June 16th meeting is available online:
Link: http://blip.tv/file/3769283
The relevant documents from the Common Council packet, part of the full packet, are embedded below, for easy reference. I have included the proposed ordinance for abolition of the Urban Forestry Commission, Brunner’s memo in support of that action, and a letter from the Wisconsin State Forester. (The City of Whitewater has already placed these and other public documents online, at the city website.)
Chronology.
Here’s a general chronology of Whitewater government’s problems managing a simple tree commission:
- Whitewater for many years had a Tree Commission (TC).
- In 2009, some citizens on the Tree Commission, and former members of that body, criticized various aspects of city tree-pruning and care.
- In response to complaints that the TC and some citizens were supposedly out of control, maligning city workers, etc., the TC was suspended, and later abolished.
(It was abolished even though an interim head of the TC was able to show that principal complaints about TC conduct and policy on pruning had been resolved by the time Whitewater’s Common Council voted to suspend the TC. At the Council discussion, Whitewater was treated to a long list of speakers offering stale comments about how reckless or imprudent TC members had supposedly been.) - After consideration, Whitewater established an Urban Forestry Program (UFP).
- Recently, a member of the UFP, and a non-member resident wrote to Paul DeLong of the the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources, to complain about some UFP practices.
- Council member Olsen submitted a motion to abolish the UFP, as the TC had been abolished previously.
- City manager Brunner supported that abolition in a memo to the Common Council on 6/15/10.
Last Year’s Overreaction to Citizen Complaints.
I’ve written that the earlier kerfuffle over the TC should never have led to its suspension. See, Whitewater’s Tree Commission, Part 1 and Whitewater’s Tree Commission, Part 2. I offered these remarks almost a year ago:
The TC’s members are citizen volunteers. They deserve more, not less, deference than office holders (especially officer holders who are paid.) Imagine being someone other than the few hundred who think they own this town, define its culture for everyone, and may not be questioned. If you’re someone else, with a different point of view, why volunteer if you’ll be tarred with accusations that may have no immediate connection to you?
Some of the complaints from city workers about the TC may be justified, but by the time of the Council meetings, many of these complaints concerned matters in the past. That didn’t stop speakers from complaining as though these problems were continuing, often ignoring what the new chair of the TC had just said.
This Year’s Overreaction to Citizen Complaints.
Some citizens wrote a letter to the State Forester about Whitewater’s UFP. So what? In response their letter, the State Forester closed by saying, “I appreciate your concerns and passions for the trees of Whitewater.” The State Forrester was nonplussed.
What does Brunner say to the Common Council about all this? He says that the citizens’ letter was egregious and constituted micromanagement. Both remarks are nonsense — if Brunner thinks this is egregious, then he’s lived a cosseted life. As for micro-management, that’s just his term for criticism he doesn’t like.
It’s funny about Brunner, because he’s quick to say that he’s never seen anything like this in his professed twenty-five years as a city manager, but he doesn’t understand the implications of what he’s saying. He lacks the self-reflection to understand that if he hasn’t seen something like this in twenty-five years, it’s because he’s had a narrow and brittle experience with ordinary people.
I think — although I do not know — Brunner must believe that touting his tenure as a municipal manager is meant to reassure people about the strength of his views. Actually, it does quite the opposite. He conducts himself like someone much younger and less experienced. It’s truly a rebuke to his understanding and self-reflection that after twenty-five years (however one counts that time), that he’s able to do no better than he does.
A thin-skinned, brittle manager, with a tin ear, little apparent understanding of the diversity of ordinary life and views, an evident expectation of deference and servility from others, given to exaggerations and empty cheerleading, is the last thing this town needed.
There’s irony in this, as Brunner does represent something last and soon to be from the past: a declining, stodgy town faction of mediocrities and middling officials destined to be eclipsed by a new generation. Although Brunner’s not from Whitewater, he’s the perfect choice for a narrow, reactionary leader to guide the city’s dissipated, enervated elite into its decline, destined to be supplanted with a more tolerant and multicultural demographic. Our future will be more consistent with America’s promise of opportunity for all.
Open Records and Confidentiality.
Brunner learned of the citizens’ letter, apparently, when he was copied on a reply to the citizens from the State Forester. Brunner then claims to have initiated an open records request to get the copy of the citizens’ letter.
I think it was foolish for anyone to expect confidentiality from a state bureaucrat. One could and should expect that the State Forester would tip Brunner off, somehow. He did just that. Our Public Records Law (Wis. Stat. § 19.31-19.39) allows any person to request public records. It should be noted, though, that the law by express intent is for citizens to inquire of government, not officials to inquire of citizens’ contact with other officials
See, 19.31. Declaration of policy:
In recognition of the fact that a representative government is dependent upon an informed electorate, it is declared to be the public policy of this state that all persons are entitled to the greatest possible information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of those officers and employees who represent them. Further, providing persons with such information is declared to be an essential function of a representative government and an integral part of the routine duties of officers and employees whose responsibility it is to provide such information. To that end, ss. 19.32 to 19.37 shall be construed in every instance with a presumption of complete public access, consistent with the conduct of governmental business. The denial of public access generally is contrary to the public interest, and only in an exceptional case may access be denied.
Brunner’s not wrong to request it — and the citizens should have expected that he would — but it does show how eager he is to watch citizens’ efforts rather than manage his own staff.
Removal of a Commission Member.
In the case of a private citizen, not part of any public body, the City of Whitewater has no recourse for written comments sent to the Wisconsin DNR. Despite the desperate ignorance of one official or another, there’s nothing in the letter sent to the state forester that’s actionable at law. Nothing. Agree or disagree, right or wrong, it’s still all lawful.
There’s now consideration in Whitewater that one member of the current tree program should be removed. Here Whitewater walks — as she does more often that properly ordered communities — on vulnerable ground. If there’s a move to remove a citizen member for conduct that inhibits and disrupts public proceedings, it should come initially from the commission of which he is a member, not initially from Council.
More significantly, removal on the basis of his a citizen member’s lawful views — however erroneous — is surely illegitimate and grounds for a objection. Writing a letter to a Wisconsin official, by the way, is speech, not conduct. No matter how upset it makes a few thin-skinned city employees and their political champions, that’s not unlawful nor is it a legitimate basis for removal.
Council was wise to decide against abolishing the UFC on June 15th. That’s an easy decision — abolition never should have been proposed.
The greater problem isn’t what to do about the Urban Forestry Commission, but what to do about the City Manager.