This morning, the first of December, 153 days into the current Administration, we are now seeing some of the major plans to consolidate departments and centralize management in the city. The plan to combine the Law and Fire Departments is a big decision, one that needs to be discussed, evaluated and implemented with great care.
Although the duties of this city’s Law Department could be seen on some level as putting out fires all day, every day (there’s a joke in there, somewhere), the Mayor’s decision to bring the folks who actually put out real fires under the management of a lawyer is not an intuitive one, and not allowed by our current Ordinances.
The structure of the City’s Administration is governed by Chapter 2 of our City Code. This Chapter describes the three Branches of our government – the Executive, Legislative and Judicial – as well as the numerous officers, departments and agencies.
Throughout this Chapter, there are several officers and department heads – for instance, the Business Adminstrator, City Assessor, City Attorney, as well as the Police and Fire Directors – whose job descriptions include specific levels of experience and expertise in the professional field they are to work in on behalf of the citizens of the city. Let’s look at a few:
The City Clerk “shall have been qualified by training and experience to perform the duties of his/her office.”
The Business Administrator “shall be chosen solely on the basis of his/her executive and administrative qualifications with special reference to his/her actual experience in, or knowledge of, accepted practice in respect to duties of the office as hereinafter set forth.”
The Director of Finance shall “be qualified by training or experience in governmental finance and fiscal management.”
The Chief Assessor “shall be qualified by at least five years’ training or experience, or a combination thereof, in the valuation and assessment of real and personal property.”
You get the idea. This kind of language is found all over this Ordinance. Descriptions of qualifications and required experience are laid out for nearly every key department head and senior officer in this City. In fact, just about the only key officers not required to have prior experience are our elected officials: the Mayor and Council.
That’s supposed to be another joke.
In any case, what is true for the senior officers named above is also true for our Fire Director. According to our current law, Article XIII, Section 2-59 Part A,
“There shall be a Fire Department, the head of which shall be the Fire Director. Prior to his/her appointment, the Fire Director shall have had at least five years’ experience in a responsible capacity in fire administration.”
All of the accounts in this morning’s media describe the background and experience of Marc McKithen, the gentleman to be nominated to head up both the Law Department and the Fire Department. He has an excellent educational background, and good experience; I’ve known lawyers who’ve worked at Milbank, Tweed, and it’s a first-rate New York firm. Mr. McKithen seems a great choice to head the Law Department.
However, Mr. McKithen lacks the experience in fire administration required by our ordinance, something that should give our City Council pause as they are requested to advise and consent to this nomination, should it come to them as proposed.
Since the administrative consolidation planned for the Fire and Law Departments – as well as other re-organizational actions to be considered under the ongoing effort to slim this city’s government down to one we can sustain and afford – will require major changes to the City’s Ordinances, I hope that Council will be very, very careful with this process.
I also hope that the Mayor will consult with Council all along the way; I hear disturbing accounts of at least a few members of Council who were surprised by this news as it was developing yesterday. Council needs to be – and has to be, by terms of our Charter and our Ordinances – a full partner in this. I am concerned that they may have been too much in the dark up until now.
Departmental consolidation and re-organization needs to happen in Trenton; we cannot in any way afford our current structures. That’s a fact.
However, in this particular case, the duties and responsibilities entrusted to our Fire Department are unique. Our lives and our property are in the hands of our firefighters and their officers. Our current Ordinance recognizes this, and wisely prescribes that the person nominated to be our Fire Director be properly seasoned and experienced in the particular demands of fire administration.
We mess with this particular requirement at our peril. Let’s be careful about this.
UPDATE: This afternoon City Hall released this statement. Apparently, this is not a done deal. Stay tuned.