Comment

Comment by Willy on March 18, 2015 at 10:40pm

Only you could tie City Managers to this movie and do a good job at it. This movie could also be used to illustrate that many other City officials consider the public as bad children and act accordingly with their own psychotic reaction, and then there's the police.

Faye Dunaway was excellent in this role as Joan Crawford. This scene bordered on insanity and it is hard to think that many children are living with this kind of mental cruelty and physical abuse.

Comment by XLFD on March 17, 2015 at 10:52pm

I have followed three 'firings' of city managers.  The first was Jim Miller's back when he was with Ludington, the second was Meg Mullendore's with Belding, and now Mitch Deisch in Manistee.  Each was released with a golden parachute of parting gifts, and replete with threats of impropriety/lawsuits made against the councilors/mayor that severed the relationship.   

If people are worried that their popular-elected mayor may not have the know-how to operate a city, then why do most major cities not have a city manager?  If these mayors lack the skills in certain municipal operations, he can oversee people who specialize in those fields, and just do administrative tasks.  There's nothing preventing small cities like Scottville, Manistee and Ludington from having no city managers-- it would save Ludington about 5% of its budget, and we'd gain accountability in the process.

Comment by AQUAMAN on March 17, 2015 at 6:46pm

City Managers are indeed a questionable asset and necessity for any local government. In Ludington, the City Manager was never elected, always appointed. We, the people of Ludington, did not have any voice in whom would be in that important position of power. And when we did have a local assume that position, he was basically ousted from that office when he disagreed with the Mayor's attitudes towards the locals. He stepped on a lot of local's toes, and finally got fed up with the matters when he had to get even meaner and more out of step with his friends and relative around town. Now enters a new manager, another not chosen, but appointed. He does not have any type of local connection with friends nor relatives in town, and his demeanor is to step on any toes and grab as much power as is humanly possible to achieve the fixed agendas of the few in elected office. He MUST be a YES MAN ALWAYS! That, you cannot necessarily get in a local born and raised in Ludington. Therefore, we ended up with Shyster John Shay III. A man without any ethics nor morals nor feelings for locals, strictly a cyber type machine, geared towards saying YES only to his masters, no matter whom gets hurt or destroyed. The sooner we git rid of the City Mgr. position, at least as this scenario locally stands at present, the better.

Comment by XLFD on March 17, 2015 at 8:28am

As Manistee decides whether to oust their current under-performing city manager the people of our area need to think long and hard why someone as unaccountable as a city manager is given such an amazing power over a city when the people with accountability, city councils and mayors, dodge any sort of responsibility for running the city.  

Our president and congress do not appoint nation managers, our governor and state congress do not appoint state managers, so why should we have such lack of accountability at our most intimate level of government?  Read here for further discussion.

For those who miss the cultural reference, the dialog is mutated somewhat from the memorable moments of the movie, Mommie Dearest: