Here’s some local humor that has the shorts of Pensacola City Manager Tom Bonfield and some of his employees in a bunch. Bonfield says city councilman Sam Hall is uninformed. By all means, inform us.
Question: “What is white, shaded and sleeps three?”
Answer: “A city truck.”
Bonfield is perfectly entitled to disagree with Hall or anyone else on anything. Whining about it to the mayor and city council reveals a lot about him.
Pensacola News Journal link | Sam Hall, Government-by-Complaint | RicksBlog
My expanded comments from Sam’s blog below. . .
This shouldn’t be an issue for a few reasons.
1. Show me a city work crew in any city in the U.S. that seems to work any differently than what was described by citizens of D2 and communicated by their representative. And I don’t mean to pick on city workers. State workers are no different. Some might say worse.
Point is, that’s the way it is, and that’s also the way the people in D2 see it. There’s nothing unusual about the good people of D2. Also, this does not necessarily mean the workers aren’t doing what they’re supposed to be doing. The citizens that live there only have their perception of what they see. If Bonfield thinks that their perception is not correct, then what did he do to correct it? Attack Sam?
2.The second reason this should not be an issue is because as I understand the issue, Bonfield had been told (6 months) of the concerns of the people in D2 and did not react positively, if at all. A manager that has the people’s interest in mind would have recognized that he needs to communicate to the people and explain that yes, those guys are supposed to be working just the way you have seen them working and here’s why. And, I’ll do my best to cut your grass but here’s why we can’t get to it sooner.
The problem was created and left to fester by Bonfield whether he accepts responsibility for it or not. Bonfield responds by shooting the messenger, Sam. Bonfield should feel rather embarrassed for letting an obviously funny joke, submitted by John Q Public, get his karma all messed up. No manner of projecting fault with Sam Hall can hide what the people of D2 feel, Tom.
Some managers might wonder if people in the other districts feel the same way? Did Tom?
To attack Sam Hall for basically representing his district tells me that Bonfield doesn’t work well with others. Besides, where’s Bonfield’s blog? The Pensacola News Journal, front page, top, that’s where.
The people of D2 made a good choice in Sam to represent their interests, despite what the first commenter thinks. Articulate wasn’t he/she?
Some food for thought. The PNJ reaches a market of a couple hundred thousand people. Sam’s blog might get 100 hits a day not counting spam. (just guessing Sam) So Bonfield’s way of solving the problem is to make it a front page issue. This from a guy who says that Sam should come “see me,” as if he didn’t.
Taking it to the front page is not following his own advice.
