Almost a year ago we welcomed the arrival of Shawn Hamilton as Acting City Manager in our post: “Will Interim ACM Create New City Manager Paradigm?”

At that time we branded him a “high-risk, high-reward selection” – the former because of his minimal public sector experience as the Grundy County Administrator managing a $14 million budget, the latter because of his more extensive background in private-sector banking and management consulting.  We expressed our hope that he might dispel the notion that private-sector skill sets don’t work all that well in a government setting.

Now, almost a year into this noble experiment, we think the results remain decidedly mixed in light of some significant mis-steps by Hamilton during his first 10 months in office.

For example, last October Hamilton stumbled badly out of the gate in what looked to us like an attempt to play “politics” with the new ICOPS contract.  He authorized and/or prepared an “analysis” demonstrating why the new ICOPs contract was better than the old one – but only after the new contract had already been passed, vetoed, and that veto sustained.

In December we discovered that Hamilton inexplicably had been sitting on the contractual “accounting” required from Taste of Park Ridge NFP (“Taste Inc.”) for a couple of months before reporting the results to the City Council.  Not only was that accounting non-compliant with the contract’s requirements, but Hamilton’s delay let the clock tick down on the City’s option of putting the 2013 Taste of Park Ridge event (“TOPR”) out to RFP; and, consequently, TOPR 2013 was given to Taste Inc. on a no-bid basis because there was no time to do anything else.

In January, we wondered whether Hamilton and new Finance Director (Hamilton pick) Kent Oliven would be up for the City Manager’s biggest test: the 2013-14 budget process.  They weren’t.  In fact, they were so discombobulated that the Council had to delay the start of its budget workshops for a couple of weeks while Hamilton and Oliven stumbled around just trying to fill in the blanks of the budget template that had worked so well the previous year.

By March, Hamilton was aiding and abetting Fire Chief Mike Zywanski’s attempt to end-run the competitive bidding process on a $150,000 contract to replace the Fire Department’s ambulance cardiac monitors.  Hamilton stood silently by as Chief Z tried to stampede the Council with a questionable-bordering-on-bogus “analysis” of comparable products, along with dire warnings about the endangerment of public safety if the no-bid deal wasn’t cut immediately.  Only when pointedly questioned by Ald. Dan Knight did Chief Z finally admit that delaying this procurement really wouldn’t jeopardize the health or safety of Park Ridge residents.

Also in March, Hamilton aided and abetted Human Resource Mgr. Mike Suppan in botching the contract negotiations with the union representing the City’s public works employees – the one that contributed $1,000 to the candidate challenging Mayor Dave Schmidt’s re-election bid.  Apparently Hamilton and Suppan couldn’t, or wouldn’t, follow the Council’s direction that any contract be cost neutral; i.e., that any wage increases be offset with union concessions on other items.  The result: Hamilton recommended a contract requiring the City’s expenditure of $75,488 of “net new dollars” over the contract’s 3-year term, with no explanation from him of why this was such a good deal for the City’s taxpayers.

And in April we wondered what Hamilton was thinking in recommending that the City Council pass a resolution proposed by the next-to-worthless Northwest Municipal Conference, encouraging the federal government to adopt a plan of immigration reform.  Hamilton’s recommendation was properly dismissed by the Council, which gave it a unanimous “no” vote with barely any discussion – except to criticize it.

These incidents, although few in number, raise enough questions about Hamilton’s priorities and  judgment to deny him “permanent” city manager status.  At least for the time being.

But apparently these and other gaffes by Hamilton aren’t enough to prevent the City Council from offering him the permanent City Manager position at the Council’s May 28th meeting.  To the contrary, the Council – with the exception of Ald. Jim “Sleepy” Smith (3rd) – sounds pleased with Hamilton’s performance, and has directed Schmidt to “negotiate” an employment agreement with him.

Frankly, we wonder whether they are as “pleased” with Hamilton’s performance as they are dubious about finding anybody better if they go through the time, effort and expense of conducting a formal search to fill that position.  Given the City’s recent experience with the likes of Jim Hock and Tim Schuenke before him, and what we read and hear about the city and village managers in other communities, they may be right.  And despite all these whiffs, fumbles and shanks, Hamilton still might be able to raise his game to the level of what we hoped for when he arrived.

But why give Hamilton a contract?

According to H.R. Mgr. Suppan, such a contract “solidifies the city’s position and the candidate’s position.”

That bit of squishy H.R.-speak may sound nice, but how does an employment contract solidify “the City’s position” when we all know that the moment Hamilton – or any other City employee, for that matter – says he wants to leave, the Council will most certainly bid him bon voyage on the theory that somebody who doesn’t want to be here won’t do a good job if he/she is kept here?

Let’s call a spade a spade: these kinds of employment contracts protect the employee.  Period.

So even though we’re confident Schmidt won’t negotiate the kind of fiasco deal then-mayor Howard Frimark cut with then-incoming city manager Jim Hock, a deal made exponentially worse by the Council’s demented contract extension months before five Frimark holdovers (Don Bach, Jim Allegretti, Robert Ryan, Tom Carey and Frank Wsol) left office, we question the wisdom of any employment contract at all.

The overwhelming majority of Park Ridge taxpayers who pay Hamilton’s salary don’t have employment contracts in their jobs.  They’re subject to Illinois’ “employment-at-will” laws, which permit their termination at any time for virtually any reason, or for no reason at all.

So why does Hamilton, or any public employee for that matter, deserve an employment contract when the private-sector employees who pay those public employees’ salaries don’t?

And if he doesn’t deserve a contract, then why was Schmidt directed to negotiate one?

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