The Nature of Man
Mr. Fulwoods good nature invariably rings through when he stands up to declaim as it did and he did last night, addressing the City Council in the largely empty Council Chambers.
This was an unusually understated setting for the most important policy speech the City Manager ever has delivered in City Hall. With lucidity, coherence and succinctness, Mr. Fulwood explained why the time has come to overturn a 90-year tradition of the way business is done at City Hall, and precisely how he plans to go about it with, of course, the City Councils assent.
Snack, Anyone?
The typically divided, spasmodically dysfunctional City Council practically twisted itself into an arthritic pretzel before unanimously approving Mr. Fulwoods plan, with two minor reservations.
But in the City Councils world, even specious, arcane disagreements are worth serious, hand-wringing debates, especially while colleagues take humanitarian breaks.
Here Come the Comparisons
The punchline in Mr. Fulwoods speech, which everyone knew in advance, was his generally unchallenged proposal to hire the citys first Chief Financial Officer. This will be a powerful position. Once the CFO is installed, probably by September or October, he or she will have authority over every person and scrap of paper inside City Hall within spitting distance of a dollar sign. The hiring also is sure to spark assessments of the comparative powers of the city manager and the CFO.
Tied Into a Neat Package
That was the painless part.
In 18 snappy minutes at the speakers podium, where he almost never stands, Mr. Fulwood adroitly explained what drove the overhaul. He was not going to remind anyone of Dr. King, but then Mrs. King didnt, either.
Last April, Mr. Fulwood said, Culver City voters approved historic changes in the City Charter, starting with the conversion of his own duties, from Chief Administrative Officer to City Manager. Implemented on July 1, the revised job description made him more of a traditional boss and a hands-on policy-decider than ever before.
Making Changes
In the 7 months since then, Mr. Fulwood said, he has been studying ways to make the hydra-headed monster that is the 750-person City Hall workforce more efficient even a little efficient.
Redundancy, a congenital bureaucratic disease, was costing Culver City millions every fiscal season, Mr. Fulwood suggested.
He brought in a retired fiscal maven from Santa Clarita, Andrea Daroca. Together, they have carved out a tidy, impressive-sounding, clear-headed strategy that should not cause a thunderclap louder than the San Francisco Earthquake.
They made amazing discoveries in their reviews, not untypical in government bureaucracies. If City Hall is not awash in overlapping jobs and duplicative efforts, there are at least enough to make a horse-healthy man choke.
Even though the grand sweep of the Fulwood reorganizational plan calls for consolidation of traditionally autonomous departments, a shedding of prestigious titles and a spreading out of duties, the city manager promised not one person would lose his job. He repeated the point several times for the distracted brethren in the room.
Time to Spread Out
Think of a person assembling a thousand-piece, floor-model jigsaw puzzle. Mr. Fulwood asked several times, and appeared to receive, the time he needs and the elbow room he said will be required to reshape the workforce while subtracting the dangling flab. Personnel-whittling, he reminded listeners, is not an exact science.
Increased efficiency and effectiveness were the main bywords in Mr. Fulwoods speech. Sounding occasionally like Coach Fulwood, he said that office morale and team spirit would be lifted when workers see the trim-down strategy turning the force into a lean, mean machine, as athletic types proclaim.
Millions in Savings
As the momentum of reorganization builds, Mr. Fulwood promised, the city, almost immediately, will be able to save $4 million to $7 million a year from the present rate of (bloated) expenditures.
He insisted that within the first 6 to 12 months, ripe fiscal savings will become evident.
Over the next 5 years, Mr. Fulwood estimated, attrition alone retirement and natural-cause departures will shave the workforce by 20 percent. Cross-department training of employees will be instituted, and entrenched career specialists will be turned into generalists. In what may have seemed like a contradiction but he insisted it wasnt Mr. Fulwood admitted that we may not need all the positions we currently have. But elimination of slots will only be executed after a person (voluntarily) leaves.
Growing Closer
The first and most acutely affected region of City Hall will be the City Treasurers office, which will be combined over the coming months physically and aesthetically with the City Controllers office. Both Treasurer Crystal Alexander and Controller Marlee Chang will report to the interim Chief Financial Officer, Ms. Daroca.
In Phase II, the City Clerks department will be subsumed by the City Managers office that will be the most publicly noticeable difference.
In Response
Mr. Fulwoods purring quarter-hour presentation was like driving from Culver City to Santa Monica.
The City Councils hair-splitting 105-minute response was like driving from Culver City to Maui.
Vice Mayor Alan Corlin, and Councilmen Steve Rose and Scott Malsin promptly endorsed the city managers sprawling restructuring strategy. They barely spiced their remarks with a watch-pockets worth of corrections and suggestions.
The Doubters
Councilwoman Carol Gross and Mayor Gary Silbiger entertained towering, lingering doubts, but for disparate reasons related to a lack of perceived clarity.
Ms. Gross held the floor for a marathonic 36 minutes. Monopolizing the microphone twice as long as Mr. Fulwood, she repeatedly chastised the city manager, her longtime dueling foe, for inspecificity in his personnel and fiscal projections.
A Few Citations
Ever the gentleman, Mr. Fulwood instinctively apologized. Then he explained to Ms. Gross that in most of the cases she cited, pre-emptive precision was unattainable because of the nature of the methodology. He said because variables were attached both to the estimated millions in savings and the far leaner workforce, it would be impossible to provide exact data in advance.
After standing for an hour and a half, shifting foot to foot, Mr. Fulwood, between questions, went over and sat down, exhaling, even if he is in pretty good shape.
Size Counts
Mr. Silbiger, in the main, tussled with his 4 City Council colleagues, and Mr. Fulwood, over the generic brand name for downsizing, known in the trades as Right Sizing by Zero-Based Staffing. Essentially, Mr. Fulwoods Council supporters explained to the mayor, it means training an efficiency-oriented staff to perform the greatest number of tasks, irrespective of department lines, effectively burying the culture of independent departments.
Safe at Home
Ever sensitive to the needs and desires of the broader community, Mr. Silbiger said a number of times that services to the public should not be reduced, and City Hall employees should not lose their jobs in the pending shakeup. In each instant, he was assured no one would be canned and all present services would protected.
