Mitch Harper at Fort Wayne Observed is reporting that Clifford Clarke, the City’s Chief Information Officer, has resigned. I wondered where he was during last evening’s City Council meeting when the contract was discussed and given approval. I found it very odd he wasn’t in attendance for such an important event. You may read Harper’s post here.
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Wanna bet he was invited to resign? No one in city government will be candid about it but don’t you think the exchange withTim Pape was enough?
My ‘ol Grand-Dad used to say- “The boss ain’t always right….. But he’s always boss!
Plus, if he “resigns” he doesn’t get un-employment.
Clifford was in fact, fired/asked to resign. He was told he was not welcome at the City Council meeting last night. The next morning, remnants of ACS were told to disable his accounts.
No unemployment for Clifford?? Such a shame, he can join the dozens of ACS contractors that weren’t eligible for unemployment when Jimmy Branton, Deputy Director of ACS decided he was going to “fire em” with a smile. Jimmy’s lapdog, Pete Joseph, wanting to please his master has mimicked his behavior, and sent many other, help desk contractors to the community foodbanks as well. Clifford’s salary is a matter of public record, I doubt he will be starving anytime soon.
I’m lookin for a tear….wait…no I got nuthin.
FmrCityContractor – I don’t know if you listened to the conversation last Tuesday, but Tim Pape made some comments that at the time seemed a little unusual. Not only did he say it once, but I think he repeated it again to encourage some agreement from Jim Howard. The comments were to the end that the problems were not completely with ACS – that there were issues inside the City as well.
I hate to see anyone lose their job. I respected Clifford for what he was able to accomplish and some of the hurdles he faced – as all government employees face.
HOWEVER, I had a conversation with him earlier this year after an Open Government Task Force Meeting. It was the first conversation (and last) I’d really had with him.
I had made the point in the meeting that having three weeks of City Council meetings accessible VOD is great. But the problem is they’re only there for 3 weeks. What stimulated the VOD project was a request for easier access to recordings of the meetings. In fact, I think the original conversation was about providing audio recordings and the video on DVD’s that could be checked out from the ACPL.
I went on to make the point that for $60 I purchased a Sony handheld audio recorder that I take with me to meetings. I arrive back at home and within 20 minutes, I can upload the meeting to the web. (Now that I’ve figured out the ins and outs of the software, the quality has improved as well.)
After the meeting, Clifford and I spoke a bit further about it. Let me rephrase that, Clifford spoke and I listened. He made some valid points about having to balance budgetary, workload and plain ol’ time constrictions with putting out a quality project. I agreed with some of what he said as he made good points.
Then, he went on to tell me about someone’s blog (and I think he knew it was mine) that had made a big deal about the fact that when the city revamped it’s website earlier this year, and added the news slider, they were using a rendering of the Harrison Square that was the very first one ever done.
Now, it was indeed my blog and I had a valid point. You can read the post here for my comments. Clifford finished by giving me the balance rhetoric again. At this point, I wanted to challenge what he was saying because if you’re so concerned about having the time to accomplish something, then why not do it right the first time, rather than have to go back and do it again? I let it go because it would only have been argumentative and wouldn’t have been productive.
I say productive because the thing that amazed me about the way Clifford handled it was, I’m the tech guy and you just don’t have a clue. Plus, when someone tells you that you’re probably not going to like what you’re going to hear – that you’re probably going to be offended, well, let’s just say they set the stage. You can insult someone a bit more subtly and get away with it.
It was this same kind of performance and pattern that I saw again the first night of the ATOS contract presentation. So while I respected Clifford’s abilities and knowledge, his people skills left something to be desired and it was probably this that did him in more than anything else.
The posts I alluded to regarding the City’s Remake of it’s website may be found here:
Fort Wayne City Website Remake – 18th March 2008
Fort Wayne City Website Revisited – 31st March 2008