THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507200175
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
FOR SOME time now, the City Council has had a roller-coaster relationship with City Manager James W. Rein. One minute the councilmen are running him down, saying things about him they wouldn't say about a dog, and the next thing you know, they're clapping him on the back like brothers.
So the councilmen weren't acting out of character last week when they renewed the manager's contract for another year, then denied him the modest pay increase that they bestowed on other key city administrators.
``Differences over management style,'' which is what they call it when CEOs don't see eye-to-eye with their boards of directors, have long threatened to end Mr. Rein's tenure as Chesapeake's top administrator. Most current council members have, at one time or another, been ready to give him the heave-ho.
So why haven't they? Maybe it's because, deep in their hearts, they understand what it must be like to try to run a city with hectoring politicians, demanding citizens and a slew of ``council watchers,'' civic activists and editorial writers hanging over your shoulder, ready to pounce at every misstep.
When the chips were down last week, only one councilman, Robert T. Nance Jr., was ready to fire Mr. Rein. Mr. Nance says four of his colleagues had agreed in private it was time for the manager to go, but lost their stomach for it when it came time to vote.
Mr. Nance is pretty upset about it. In his pique, he declared that he could tie the manager to ``every scandal that has happened in this city in the past 10 years.'' That, of course, greatly overstated the case.
A lot has happened on Mr. Rein's watch - scandal, mismanagement, outright fraud - but no one has ever been able to show that the manager was involved in the worst of it.
It's had to imagine why Mr. Rein would want to stay around trying to work with people who obviously lack confidence in him and who actively undermine his authority at every turn.
Mr. Rein can continue to draw the same pay for another year. He can bide his time, hoping that the voters will replace his severest detractors on council with others who have a greater appreciation of his abilities. He could even try to become more compliant to the will of his bosses on council, whether or not he believes their ideas are in the interest of good government.
None of these courses are good either for the city or for Mr. Rein personally.
The City Council seems to have neither the will to improve their rocky, mutually unsatisfactory relationship with the manager nor the will to terminate it. And so it continues for yet another year. by CNB