Friends say that the proud Ms. Alexander was the most uncomfortable person in the late evening in the formerly crowded Chambers. As the city’s principal financial officer, she believed ardently that she should have had a significant voice in the lengthy ninety-minute presentation. She did not, however, contribute one syllable or a feather of influence, which is an ongoing source of ranklement to a woman who considers herself a premium professional.
Signs Are Familiar
The crackling disagreement over spheres of authority between Ms. Alexander and Mr. Fulwood follows the faultlines of a familiar struggle in government:
Baldly put, it is a classic clash for power between the head of the family and a specialist.
Pitted are a low-key chief executive who believes that his position endows him with the power to command all he surveys, including finances, and a treasurer who steadfastly maintains that as an acknowledged expert, she deserves at least input if not a considerably wider voice.
Importantly, the world of finance is a career-long speciality of the Chief Administrative Officer.
Who should ultimately prevail in the taffy-pull for authority? Depends on who is asked at City Hall. Some describe the two as co-equals on this subject. Others say that Ms. Alexander merits a muscular role in sharing a platform with Mr. Fulwood. But, they say, since he is the chief executive, she should defer to him for the final word.
The tension is not going away. Both parties firmly believe that right is on their side, and both are likely to be on the City Hall roster for the relative long term.
A Cold Peace?
City Hall observers say their differences are unlikely to be assuaged as long as they retain their present positions.
The dispute appears to resolve into a single crucial question:
Can their competing visions be accommodated, professionally, effectively, in a cold peace environment?
Neither Mr. Fulwood nor Ms. Alexander is a stranger to controversy at City Hall. Admittedly strong-willed, each is acknowledged to be a gold standard professional in his and her fields. Neither is regarded as combative or prickly.
If they don’t seek to become lightning rods, they have learned to live with those reputations.
Hailed for smoothly overcoming vexing obstacles, Mr. Fulwood is armed with a new contract, on the same financial terms as before. His salary pegged at just under $175,000.
Ms. Alexander’s long-range plans center on overseeing a reorganization of the financial hierarchy at City Hall in the event the Charter Reform ballot measure passes in April.
She is enthusiastically campaigning for Measure V even though it calls for drastically changing the Treasurer’s office from elective to appointive two years later.
Friends say she looks forward to re-casting the long debated structure of City Hall departments or individuals with fiscal responsibilities. The lineup of offices and the willful personalities who have occupied them have made the traditionally obscure financial executives at City Hall more newsworthy and better known than the mayors are in some communities.
First, a Few Bumps
Mr. Fulwood’s just-minted three-year contract with the city — starting in June when the present one expires — was scheduled to be publicly, routinely approved during last night’s meeting.
Not so fast.
Unsurprisingly, this City Council, which barely agrees on the day of the week, almost messed up what looked as uncomplicated as a one-person parade.
What threatened to turn into an upside-down disaster for Mr. Fulwood was averted rather brilliantly when Mayor Albert Vera strong-armed his way to the anticipated outcome.
Aroused to near fever level, Mr. Vera fought off attempts by Councilwoman Carol Gross and Vice Mayor Gary Silbiger to delay, if not derail, the process.
Ms. Gross, Mr. Fulwood’s most implacable foe on the dais the past two and a half years, interrupted the flow toward approval to say that certain information had come to her in recent days. She said it should be discussed out of public view before the final vote was taken.
A veteran at having his own ideas rejected by colleagues, Mr. Silbiger, desiring to set an example, seconded Ms. Gross’s wish. Suddenly the tide was reversing against Mr. Fulwood. Councilman Alan Corlin, a reliable Fulwood ally, suggested a three-minute recess to the back room to hear Ms. Gross’s assertion.
Whoa, said Mayor Vera, seeing the evening’s major announcement begin to disintegrate.
Repeating an earlier statement he had made with the force of iron, he charged that Council behavior was bordering on the unthinkable. Mr. Fulwood was being placed in an untenable position, he contended, because the Council was recklessly dangling his job in mid-air for no apparent good reason.
He told the City Council how things were going to be.
“I am embarrassed,” Mr. Vera said. “And I am not going to the back room. I am calling for a vote.”
He did. The majority votes in the three to two pro-Fulwood outcome were from Councilman Steve Rose, Mr. Corlin and the mayor, who has had his own disagreements with the CAO.
Before Monday night, the CAO and the City Treasurer only had one interaction on Mr. Fulwood’s State of Finances report, thefrontpageonline.com has learned. When he reached her last Thursday, a source said, there was a dialogue but that was all. The spirit of Mr. Fulwood’s call was here-is-what-I-am-going-to-say.
“Crystal feels left out,” a source said. “It is as if two people were presumably equally empowered, equally qualified, to give a sensitive report. But only one person worked on it, and that person delivered it without consulting with the other person.”
‘No Need to Panic’
Speaking five weeks after City Hall instituted a hiring freeze, Mr. Fulwood said in his budgetary report that current prospects are sobering but have not reached a panic level.
He said the city can climb back toward fiscal stability by calmly following a half-dozen remedies that he outlined. Mr. Fulwood emphasized that the skyrocketing expenses and elimination of certain funding by the state were triggering devices that were beyond the ken of the City Council to control.
With the city in long-term negotiations with its six unions, the CAO’s most debated solution was recommendation of a two-tier health insurance plan that has been leaping, nationally, in popularity.
Insurance plans for present and retired workers would be protected while future hirees would be brought in with reduced benefits, which is likely to slow contract talks.
