Marathon Council Suffers From Short-term Memory Loss

Anyone who has spent any time watching the Marathon city council in action will end up citing the now well over-used cliché, kicking the can down the road. While deferring action when it comes to pig ownership or dog parks or invocations may not matter all that much, the council’s lack of movement on selecting a new city manager does. It leaves the city rudderless.

On January 18, the council voted to select an interim city manager for a term of three months while the group searched for a replacement for Roger Hernstadt, who had just resigned. At their next meeting, without much public deliberation, the council installed Mr. Marathon, Mike Puto, as that temporary person. Now, nearly 120 days later, the council has done the minimum to move the process along.

Two of the city councilors have already said publicly that they want Puto to serve until at least November and, perhaps, January. According to the Keynoter,

“[Councilman Mark] Senmartin said due to summer vacations and the coming budget season that the council would be better off pushing any decision about the manager to the end of the year. However, Vice Mayor Chris Bull said he is not fond of ‘kicking it down the road’ and Councilman Richard Keating agreed, saying, ‘I think Puto has done a great job but we need to get the ads out and start interviewing.’

Mayor Dick Ramsay suggested giving Puto a contract through the November election. Ramsay said he would be termed out at that point, implying the next council should have a role in the decision.”

That leaves the decision to newly appointed city councilman John Bartus. The council will take up the issue at Tuesday’s session.

The council’s inaction forces the selection of a new city manager upon someone else at some other time in the future. It’s one more example of the council indicating they would take action and then doing nothing. Rather than stick to the 90-day contract – at $10,000 a month – the council allows the process to drag out, forgetting about its commitment.

Retaining Puto

Would retaining former city manager Mike Puto be a bad decision? He’s very popular in the city, serves on umpteen boards and committees, is regarded as a nice guy and knows Marathon better than most. People say they like Mike and that he deserves to be given another chance after the debacle in 2008. Rumor has it that many of his backers will be at Tuesday’s meeting to voice their support.

There are numerous problems with such an approach.

First of all, Puto doesn’t have the credentials. Most professional city managers have a degree in public administration, the public sector equivalent to a Master of Business Administration (MBA). Running even a small city involves multiple complex issues including finance, public policy, zoning, planning, sewers and wastewater (including a potentially disastrous pending lawsuit) and even construction issues since the city is in the midst of planning a new city hall. Marathon has continuing personnel issues in the planning and building departments.

According to Wikipedia, “A core curriculum of a typical MPA program usually includes courses on microeconomics, public finance, research methods/statistics, policy process and policy analysis, public financial management, managerial accounting, ethics, public management, leadership, planning & Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and program evaluation/performance measurement.”

Are any people like that available? The Citizen reports that Key West just hired an assistant city manager who has a master’s of public administration from the University of Kansas and was chosen from a field of 55 candidates after a national search by the city manager and Human Resources Department. It can be done.

Puto quit under duress just a few years ago

A group of city 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 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.

But, according to the current council that was then and this is now. In fact, the issue hasn’t even been raised. Councilman Chris Bull did allude to Puto’s involvement in preventing the city from obtaining property from the Florida Keys Electric Cooperative so Marathon could put its sewer plant on that site and not right on the road. Puto pushed that accusation aside and said it was a FKEC board decision and not his.

Puto and his family own property all over town and he’s involved in many entangling relationships as one might expect about a person who has lived in Marathon for so many years.

His cousins are members of the Schmitt family who own a significant amount of the real estate in Marathon. Realtor Bruce Schmitt has been vocal about getting rid of Hernstadt, city lawyer John Herin, and city finance director Peter Rosasco. All of these have happened. Could Schmitt’s cousin Mike be counted on to make objective decisions on other issues that are important to the Schmitts?

Puto also owns a great deal of real estate in Marathon including, as part of the Puto Family Trust, a building at 6677 Overseas Highway that has come under scrutiny by the building and code enforcement departments. The current tenant, Royal Crest Builders and JC Construction, were cited for illegally working out of a house in Little Venice and for some construction violations. Could Puto be counted on to handle these kinds of issues objectively?

Puto’s working style

Puto has been described as being disorganized. A reliable source who spoke on condition of anonymity and who feels positively about Puto said that Mike organizes his office poorly, keeping almost every piece of paper that comes across his desk. This source used the word “hoarder” in describing Puto’s organization.

“When you go in his office everything lies on top of his desk or table and he’s one of those people who needs someone to help him keep things organized”, the person said. “He also tries to do things himself before he goes to someone else so he has trouble delegating.”

Council bears the ultimate blame

The final fault, however, lies with the city council itself. The councilors tend to interfere with the city manager on a daily basis. The source indicated that city managers through the years, including Puto, spend a great deal of time on the phone with city councilors or actually meeting with them in person.

“When you have a city manager who has to go meet with city councilors and you do that four or five times a week, I’m not sure they are using [the manager’s] time appropriately,” the Blue Paper’s source indicated. “The manager works for the city and not the council and there’s just too much interference from the council. Just give him his marching orders and let him go and do it.”

The recently convened charter commission addressed this issue but only as it applied to council interaction with staff members. The charter still allows city councilors to contact the city manager as often as they wish.

If the council does select a new city manager to replace Roger Hernstadt and interim manager Mike Puto, perhaps the members of the council might also want to redefine how they work with that person. Hiring someone new and not from Marathon will make that transition much easier.