Deja Vu

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

— George Santayana

The city of Marathon is suffering from mass amnesia.

In a totally expected and even foretold move, the city council appointed Mike Puto, known by many as Mr. Marathon, as interim city manager at a salary of $ 10,000 a month. His term will last three months.

The news was greeted by many as the right thing to do. Comments on the Keynoter page announcing the appointment were all positive. Local Realtor Bruce Schmitt, a harsh critic of outgoing city manager Roger Hernstadt  about whom he vented in many emails to the city council and others and who is Puto’s cousin, commented:

“No one will ever accuse Mike Puto of self-interest or of putting himself above the best interests of the people of Marathon. We all need to come together and support Mike as we move forward to heal these wounds. Mr. Marathon is the right choice at a time when we need him the most!”

What wounds Schmitt is referring to are not clear.

A long-time resident and descendent of the family that helped develop Marathon in the 1970s, Puto is on so many local boards and committees that it’s difficult to count them all. Nearly every issue of the local papers features a photo of Mike Puto grinning into the camera.

And yet, apparently few people, including the local media outlets, seem to have a memory that extends back in time more than five minutes. Yes, Mike Puto had been city manager from 2004 to 2008 but none of the current stories in the papers reminded us that the group of councilors in 2007 nearly voted to fire Puto. The vote was 3-2 to retain him for six more months.

In 2008, under pressure from the city Puto resigned as city manager. No vote was taken.

Why was he nearly axed? And why did he decide to leave a few months later before the six-month extension on his contract had expired?

According to an article at the time in the Keynoter,

“Puto has been under the microscope since March 2007, when Mayor Pete Worthington discovered he had approved $137,000 worth of Gonzalez Landscaping contracts without council approval. A newly seated council was unhappy with the error and Puto said at the time he had ‘a feeling they want to go in a different direction.’”

That might be an understatement. They wanted him gone.

Few things change in Marathon. Now Louis Gonzalez of the eponymous landscaping firm sits on the Parks and Recreation board and, in effect, runs that group. At the same time, his company has a contract with the city of Marathon to do landscaping at Sombrero Beach. No one seems to find that odd. It’s the way Marathon does business.

Pro-Puto residents showed up in droves to the meeting when the council wanted to fire him. The crowd was so large that the city was forced to stage the session inside the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office airplane hangar and not in the upstairs meeting hall.

A number of speakers, including former mayors John Bartus and Jeff Pinkus, voiced their support for Puto at the meeting. It was a long list.

The council also expressed concern with Puto’s managerial style, but eventually voted to give him a six-month extension. Terms of the contract provided for renewal after six months, though Puto could have been fired at any time without severance.

Two weeks later, councilwoman Marilyn Tempest chastised Puto for having a dirty office and drafted a lengthy list of goals and objectives she wanted to be completed within 30, 60, 90 and 120 days.

In a phone interview Tempest stood by her comments then but still supports Mike Puto’s appointment as interim city manager.

“I like Mike Puto very much,” she said. “I didn’t think he was the best manager. His organizational skills were lacking but I don’t see a problem as an interim city manager. The staff will support him and this avoids some of the problems of bringing someone unknown in.”

Puto is known to be very disorganized. He also finds it difficult to stay in his office and work. In 2007, a small group of volunteers, known as the Green Team, conducted an energy audit of city government with a goal of helping the city meet its commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 15 percent by 2015, a goal the city is very unlikely to meet. [Full disclosure: I was the chair of that volunteer Green Team.]

During this audit the group, when examining the city’s gasoline usage, discovered that Puto was driving five times more than any other city employee with the use of a city-owned car. The group queried then-community services director Susie Thomas about why this was. She reported that all Puto did was drive around in the large SUV that he got the city to purchase for him. He also loaded the vehicle down with a large amount of “stuff,” reducing its already pathetic gas mileage of 14 MPG. He rarely stayed in his office to work.

He also lacks the ability to work on a computer. This was confirmed by councilwoman Ginger Snead at the session when he was appointed interim manager. Snead lamented his lack of computer skills and his unwillingness to travel by air but voted with the rest of the council to appoint him to the $ 10,000 a month job anyway.

The bottom line is that it was easy for the council to select Puto. He’s been around, he’s done it, he’s a known quantity. But the council may also be setting the stage for future difficulties. Will Puto be able to read his email? Will his lack of organization cause internal problems with the staff, problems that will likely never be known to the public? The council itself will be snarled in a debate about how to search for a new city manager and, subsequently who that person should be. Can Puto be counted on to carry the load while the city transitions to a new manager?

Only time will tell but if history is any guide – and it should be – Mike Puto is the wrong person for even this temporary job.