THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 22, 1995 TAG: 9510210079
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Special Report: The ouster of city manager James W. Rein
LENGTH: Long : 178 lines
Following is a text of comments made by City Council members after a surprise 7-2 vote Tuesday to fire City Manager James W. Rein. The motion to fire Rein was made by Vice Mayor Robert T. Nance Jr., a Republican. Mayor William E. Ward and Councilman John W. Butt, Democrats, were the two dissenters. Council then voted unanimously to appoint Deputy Manager Clarence V. Cuffee to take over as acting city manager.
Ward: In my 18 years on City Council we have had to make some tough decisions. But never have I had to vote on a decision that in my mind was as inhumane as the one that we have just rendered.
(Applause from citizens in the audience)
This city will survive, as it has survived crises in the past. Mr. Cuffee is a competent person and will carry on in the interim as he did in the six months when Mr. Rein was given a leave of absence because of the illness of his wife. But to take the action that we did, in such an arbitrary way, without having consulted with the mayor or other members of this council, was an affront to me personally and maybe to other members of this council who can speak for themselves. It seems to me that this city is a model city in terms of why people come here and why businesses are locating here and why young boys and girls are going to our schools and prospering and going on to better themselves. And we as the nine members of the community of Chesapeake elected by you, I think, owe you a greater degree of respect than that which we have displayed here this evening.
(Applause)
I know that there may be those of you who are happy with this decision. (Some applause.) If you wish to applaud then you may do so. But I would say to each and every one of you that there comes a time in your life when you sometimes wonder what kinds of thoughts lurk in the minds of individuals to cause them to display such malice and disregard for a person who has been with us for 23 years. I am somewhat emotional, and I will at this time conclude my remarks with that, and we will continue with our agenda and let others speak.
(Ward recognizes Vice Mayor Robert T. Nance Jr.)
Nance: Mr. Mayor?
Respectfully, if I can, Mr. Mayor, I apologize for the inconvenience to the folks here tonight, but this issue has been brewing for many years, and it's been no stranger to this council, the manager situation. It's been going on for a long time. And we needed to move on. There was no perfect time to do it, none at all. And the point being, Mr. Manager, Mr. Mayor, I've come in here amidst a ton of scandals, I've tried my best to work with the manager the best that I could. But when it got down to the water issue that we discussed in the back, and the people that are suffering and the things that are going on, I just couldn't tolerate any more. And I think I voiced that very clearly to the members of council, and I would have done it here tonight to everyone else had I had the opportunity. I will continue to do that over the phone or talk to any folks that I need to to clear my position.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
(Ward recognizes Councilman Peter P. Duda Jr.)
Duda: Thank you Mr. Mayor and members of council.
Ward: Just a moment, Mr. Duda. Mr. Cuffee, you would please take the manager's seat because you will have to guide us through the agenda tonight. Mr. Duda?
Duda: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I really don't know how to begin this. Change is tough, and I know what some of you all are thinking. And I ask you please just to hear me with no interruptions. I understand what Jim is probably going through, because this past Friday, (pause) I got terminated from CBN after 23 years, (pause) 23 years of dedicated service, and I am no longer an employee. So I know what Jim is going through, because I have been through it since Friday.
And the reasons why I was terminated is not because I was not doing a good job. I was doing an excellent job. But CBN going in a different direction. And they took the department and combined it and they wanted to shorten the. . . combine a couple departments and save some finances, and consolidate some departments. But I wasn't the only one with a lot of years of experience. There's some that had 18 years and 19 years and 15 years. But after talking to my boss, who had to let me go, I understood why it was done.
I have no hard feelings toward my former employer. I wish them all the best. I pray for them, as they pray for me.
But I will survive, and Jim Rein will survive, because he is tough, and I am tough and everybody is tough. It's a tough, tough world that we live in, and things unfortunately are done sometimes, hopefully for the better. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way.
But my heart and prayers go out to Jim Rein, as they do to the other 64 employees that got laid off with me from CBN. So I wish Jim the best of luck, and my prayers are with him. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Ward: Anyone else?
(Ward recognizes Councilman John E. Allen)
Allen: Yes, sir, Mr. Mayor. This is an emotional time for everybody, certainly for this council and for Mr. Rein. And because of that, I will say, Mr. Mayor, I know with your emotion and your long time with Mr. Rein, I don't feel like you intended to do so, but I thought maybe your speech was a little self-serving in that the vote was obviously 7-2, and your speech was a little one-sided. It didn't give the whole picture of what went on in the back room. And I don't think it should give that. And I'll just give you credit for being emotional, but the fact is we did do what we thought was right. This has not been an easy thing, trust me. Difficult for all of us. Every one of us here. Even those who maybe feel more, or felt stronger about the decision, than some others of us.
But I think that, you know, the consensus was that we had lost confidence in the manager, and therefore it's time for change, and that's just the way, as unpalatable as it is, that's the way government and the way leadership works.
(Ward recognizes Councilman W. Joe Newman)
Newman: Thank you. I find this to be a decision that we made tonight that we had to make. And the reason I say it that way is because, well I guess Bum Phillips, the Houston Oilers football coach, said it best, that there's only two kinds of football coaches, them that's been fired and them that's don't get fired. And at some point when you have a chief executive officer, whether it's a corporation or whatever, at some point to change the culture of the organization you need to make the decision at the top.
This council has worked on some things over the last several months. It finally became very clear to me that we needed to make a culture change, and that's what we're doing. We're moving forward from here. The truth is, I would hate to get involved in looking now back over our shoulders, because we've done it. Now we need to look ahead. I don't believe our action was with any malice. I don't believe it was with any disregard. It was an action that says that we're going to take a proactive position in this city, and we're going to make sure that we provide the services, we're going to make sure we provide the opportunities in the city. And we're going to move forward. And that's what we mean from here on. And I appreciate the council's indulgence.
(Ward recognizes Councilman John W. Butt)
Butt: Just for a couple of minutes. You know I certainly hear what everyone has to say. But this business of city government is the biggest business in Chesapeake. It's your business, and it's our business. And I do believe there's proper ways of doing things - right and wrong ways. Most of you go to church, and most of you have never seen a preacher being fired in the pulpit. It's handled some other way, some proper means to handle that. And I think since we handle the business and your business that we should have been men enough, strong enough and gentlemen enough to handle this in another way than what it was handled tonight.
(Applause)
It's not so much really what you think. But let me tell you, in about seven, eight years, we've gone from about $300 million in retail sales to $1.5 billion in retail sales. Now that didn't come from all businesses that's just located in Chesapeake. We've brought companies in, which we have probably 43 international firms representing 25 different countries. And they're going to look at tonight's meeting and say, `How does this city really run its business? How do these people really treat people within the community? Do we really want to be a part of this community?'
And we've been able to lower your real estate taxes, the rate, for the past three years in a row, because of business and industry. (Boos and protests from the audience). Wait, I said the rate now. The assessments have gone up, your houses have, but the rates have come down during that period of time. (More protests from audience; Ward gavels for order.)
Maybe so. But anyway, I just don't think that we should shoot from the hip. I don't think we should be considered as rednecks. I do think there are proper ways to handle problems. And I don't ask you to always agree with me. And most of you probably don't part of the time. And that doesn't really. . . It does matter. But we all have opinions. And that's what it's all about. You're here tonight because you have an opinion on a particular issue, something is up that you have in your mind that you want to discuss and give your opinion on. But I think that we do have some very good city employees here. Mr. Cuffee, we worked with him for a couple of months. He's an outstanding assistant city manager, and will do an excellent job here. But we've got some good city employees that need to know that we stand behind our employees, we stand behind our citizens.
But we don't need to sit up here and be micro-managers, either. Our purpose is to come at council meetings to make public decisions that need to be made, and let the administration handle the administration end of that particular problem. And I think in some instances we have gotten away from that.
I certainly respect each and every member of this City Council here. I have nothing bad to say about any of them. Personally I just think it was a bad way that we went about doing business tonight. And I just had to express that, and my best wishes to Mr. Rein. He has given a number of years of service to this city. And to his family and to our new designated city manager. He has an awful burden on his shoulders to be able to put up with all nine of us up here at any given time. But I do appreciate the opportunity to talk. . .
Ward: Anyone else? Someone spoke to the culture of the city, and the culture of the manager and the culture of our bureaucracy. Certainly I would challenge this council to look at its internal culture, the culture of exclusion of sharing of information. If we are going to move forward, as Councilman Newman said, there certainly must be a culture of collegiality and respect for each other. And I certainly ask that all of you commit yourselves to that as we move from this point on.
Let's at this time deal with the people's business. . . by CNB