The N&R says “No matter how you feel about his job performance, there is no way a 15-minute evaluation of City Manager Mitch Johnson could be thoughtful or substantive.”
That’s because, according to (unposted) the Rhino’s John Hammer, the “backroom deal” to let Johnson keep his job without a pay raise was “done before lunchtime” on Tuesday:
The deal behind the deal was that no motion would be made to give Mitch Johnson a raise if no motion was made to fire Mitch Johnson.
Councilmember Mike Barber said that before the meeting he mentioned to the mayor that if councilmembers started talking about how wonderful Mitch Johnson was then the councilmembers who didn’t think he had been doing such a great job would be forced to chime in and things could get ugly.
The N&R says the City Council needs to set objective standards on which to evaluate Johnson’s job performance. But what are those standards? A tax break for city residents? Not going into debt to provide basic infrastructure? Holding off on property purchases during a financial crunch? Not padding his office right before a ‘hiring freeze’? Not locking a police chief out of his office on the basis of a ‘legitimate investigative tool’?
If those are the standards, then Johnson has failed.
