“My concern would be the privatization of city employees,” said Sean Burke, a janitor at one of the high schools.
Burke said that a chief operating officer with four-year terms is going to have some clout over time. “If this guy wants to start cutting city employees, I’m concerned.”
“We take really good pride in what we’re doing,” he said.
Burke said if the person is talking in every mayor’s ear, it could happen, and a privatized workforce will not do the job nearly as well.
“You start getting those buildings falling apart and looking like crap,” he said, then “we’ll start losing teachers and the quality of people who are serving up food.”
“It’s a big issue for us,” Burke said.
Tim Furey, the chairman of the Charter Revision Commission, said it is “a huge jump” to imagine that such a drastic change would be done easily. He said the mayor and City Council could make the decision, but not the chief operating officer.
Burke said, though, that a COO could do it after years in office, after he becomes entrenched.
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Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
6 comments:
Thank You Mr. Burke .....
Excellent arguement in favor of a city manager .
He's concerned that he won't be getting paid a nice wage with gold plated bennies and a gold plated pension if things are privatized.
If you area good worker, you can keep/get a job.
Otherwise, the system will reward the producers.
Hey would the privatization proponents rather have the city taken care of by illegal immigrants getting paid $7 per hour while their employer bills the city a "competitive" sum?
Personally, I'd rather see my taxes used to support services in my city done by my city's workers.
Most city workers are residents too who also pay taxes. More of those dollars paid here stay here.
It's nice to pick on the people making $40k on average (plus Gold-plated bennies, like being able to afford to go to the doctor and have a pension to live on when you retire) while our federal government's leaders' orchestrate what will amount to 3/4 of a trillion dollar or more in a corporate bailout brought on by $100 million+ salaried CEO and other wealthy players making sketchy sub-prime loans that they pumped through Fannie Mae hoping they weren't the ones to get stuck with the hot potato.
Where's the outrage on that? Was it those damn greedy investment bankers unions and mortgage company unions that I should be blaming?
Oh yeah, I forgot, those CEO got some darn nice bonuses last year and some nice parting gifts as they resigned after destroying their companies and our economy.
March 19, 2008 8:48 PM:
So I assume your solution is a state controled economy like in Cuba perhaps? Guess what Mr. Marx Jr., that place sucks to live in!
Your point is probably valid somewhat but you're comparing apples and oranges. Tax payers can barely pay their bills and you're worried about "janitor-welfare"?
Perhaps some of those taxpayers complaining the most shouldn't have bought a $500,000 house on Chippens Hill or $750,000 on Cedar Lake if they could afford to pay the taxes.
Maybe they could buy a more affordable car than dropping $50,000 on the Lexus and then complaining about the property taxes.
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