Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier
Courier EditorialWe don't suspect the Truth Patrol in Cedar Falls will make any arrests concerning a violation of the city's honesty policy.
In August, the City Council added this sentence to its employee manual: "Making false, inaccurate or misleading statements or misrepresentations about another city employee, elected or appointed official, resident, customer, city operation, practice, policy, or other matter (will not be tolerated)."
City administrative services director Richard McAlister and Mayor Ed Stachovic insisted the idea didn't stem from any particular incident, notably the rebuke of Officer Dave Bond for the views expressed in a Guest Opinion printed in the Courier.
Yet at a hearing Thursday regarding a suspension of Bond for an unrelated matter, assistant city attorney Steve Moore admitted the new policy was related to Bond's Guest Opinion.
In truth, the Bond incident was probably the icing on the cake. Cedar Falls officials had been disturbed about ongoing smear campaign against Public Safety Director Jay Kohl and that police and fire employees were expressing their grievances to the pubic on city time.
Unfortunately, such is the environment in Cedar Falls that it's hard to tell where the truth lies, although the antagonism between city leaders and employees in the public safety department isn't hard to find.
The differences, though, shouldn't be irreconcilable. Cedar Falls city leaders have tried to institute cost-savings measures, as any government should, but public safety employees believe some are draconian and threaten their safety.
Yet the problem may stem from lack of communication in the implementation, according to former Cedar Falls police captain Mike Lashbrook, now police chief in Spencer. "Some of the more outspoken (police officers) don't disagree with the changes," he said, "The problem is how it's being done."
Well-meaning people are on both sides of the controversy. The tragedy is that a bunker mentality separates them. Perhaps a call to the Iowa Peace Institute seeking conciliation would be wise.
"Government ought to run like a business" is a mantra of some politicians seeking to cloak themselves with the mantle of fiscal responsibility and operational efficiency.
Two recent developments in the Waterloo – Cedar Falls metro area, however, are prime examples of how that philosophy is sometimes flawed.
The closed-door actions by the Hawkeye Community College board of trustees against suspended President William Hierstein, and the apparent reluctance of Cedar Falls city officials to discuss problems regarding the public safety department, would be totally understandable – if they were private sector personnel matters.
The HCC board apparently saw fit to suspend Hierstein in closed session.
And when current and former Cedar Falls police officers and family members appeared before the council to plead for a public dialogue on morale and staffing problems, they were told such a dialogue was not advisable since the police belong to a union, and matters such as staffing were non-negotiable management prerogatives.
The penchant for public silence in both instances may arise from a common source as HCC Board Chairman Willie Culpepper and Cedar Falls Mayor Ed Stachovic are, or have been, in salaried management positions at John Deere’s Waterloo operations.
However, this is not John Deere or Microsoft or even the mom-and-pop grocery store on the corner. These are publicly funded governmental taxing bodies, the two elected officials are not corporate executives and public officials are answerable to a group of stockholders called the voters.
One of the primary objectives of Deere and any other company in corporate America is enhancing stockholders value. The Cedar Falls "stockholders" want to know whether their streets are safe. The "stockholders" in Merge Area VII, which Hawkeye serves, want to know who’s minding the store and whether more of their tuition and tax dollars will be unjustifiably burned on legal fees and a severance for yet another former administrator, instead of being spent on education.
The public silence has made bad situations worse, unnecessarily raising questions of hidden agendas and leaving both institutions subject to further politicization and damage to public image and employee morale. Both problems should have been addressed openly sooner – and could have been, at a time and forum of the respective elected officials’ own choosing. Now, the public dialogue is occurring, whether some officials like it or not.
"Our Citizens Are Our Business" is the motto that can be seen on Cedar Falls police cars. However, with regard to the city as well as HCC, the citizens are much more than that. They’re the bosses.
The Contrarian versus the Perpetual Candidate. Not quite World Wrestling Federation monikers, but it’s how the mayoral runoff in Cedar Falls shapes up.
The big winner Tuesday was longtime Councilman Stan Smith with 40 percent of the vote, while former Mayor Jon Crews, a fixture in municipal elections since 1971, got 32 percent.
Neither can be considered an "establishment" candidate. Smith will often buck the council majority with protest votes. Some regard Crews as too much the professional politician, seemingly holding interim jobs when out of office. But both men have cultivated fiercely loyal constituencies; planting their yard signs is a ritual of faith.
Both campaigned against the concept of the Public Safety Department, even though the much-maligned director, Jay Kohl, has moved on. Indeed, any merits of having the police and fire departments under the same umbrella may have been obscured by the animosity directed at Kohl by the police and fire unions from the moment he got the job, largely based on his reputation in Meridian Township, Mich., outside Lansing.
As in Meridian, Kohl’s political patrons were voted out in Cedar Falls.
Two capable council members and public safety devotees – Paul Rider in Ward 2 and Barbara Brown,
at-large – both lost. Rider, who didn’t actively campaign, was defeated by 21 votes by political newcomer Joe Turner, who owns three College Hill establishments. Brown, an outspoken Kohl backer, was handily beaten by former police officer Vern Kolpek.
Smith, Kolpek and Turner had the support of both the police and fire unions, campaigning for the dissolution of the Public Safety Department. Crews hedged his bets, saying he would "work to" dissolve the department in his campaign literature, but "it doesn’t say I will."
The public safety department was a hot-button issue when it was established, but had cooled off under former Police Chief Paul Hoffey who was elevated to public safety director. But Hoffey didn’t make the radical changes Kohl did. At the behest of the council, Kohl cut overtime significantly and relied more on volunteers and reserves. Police and fire employees argued the issue was personal and community safety, not overtime pay.
Between now and the (November 30) runoff, it would behoove both Smith and Crews to lay out their plans for public safety, the costs involved and the role of reserves. They’ve been around City Hall. They are astute politicians. There shouldn’t be any hedging.
Because the mayor can’t vote, his leadership is essential to change the ordinance. Whoever is elected must convince a council majority – now minus two – that they were wrong in steadfastly supporting the public safety department concept. If they can’t lead on this critical point, the winner may spend most of the next two years doing little more than ribbon cuttings.
We don’t have any strong feelings about the public safety department. It’s a matter of maximizing tax dollars, but not to the point of putting personnel at risk. We would fault the council majority for marching lockstep behind Kohl without adequately addressing concerns until a public forum in August, which seemed a high-profile therapy session rather than a catalyst for compromise.
Voters, we believe, just got tired of the squabbling and the obstinacy. Kohl’s charts, graphs and reports lacked impact in a city with few serious crimes or major fires – no matter the staffing structure.
Instead, residents most often encountered generic emblems on Public Safety Department vehicles, making it necessary to read the fine print to distinguish police officers from firefighters. And that didn’t make sense.
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