No one asked me, but if I was a Wichita city council member, I’d be pushing to take the “interim” off Scott Moore’s city manager office door as soon as humanely possible.
Hard as this may be for some to swallow, there’s a place in Wichita city government for a nice guy, for a calm, understated man whose management style elicited affection I’ve never seen in government before from city officials and residents in Ellsworth, Scott’s last stop.
And I’m here to tell you that Wichita doesn’t necessarily need a back-room arm-twister to lure, retain and grow business. Economic development can and should be a team approach, and Scott will have a lot of good foot soldiers to join him in the fight.
What would it hurt to turn city administration over to a consensus builder that John Q. Businessman could walk in and talk to? I don’t see how that would build anything but trust between City Hall and the Wichita business community, let alone the community at large. Is there something in the city policy manual that requires the General Sherman-on-the-way-to-Atlanta management style? I think not.
The council and the search committee have noted – and no doubt will again – the resume differences between Scott and other applicants.
But having watched Scott Moore from afar for more than eight years, I’d issue a caution to all of them: Your best choice might well be right under your noses.
I just returned from visiting a Chamber group over lunch with assistant business editor Dan Loving. We had the opportunity to talk about our business section and how easy it is to get news into the paper.
Most people seemed genuinely surprised that dealing with the media doesn’t have to be a painful process. I joked that once I went to lunch with a Chamber representative who, after meeting me, remarked to a mutual friend, “Carrie was surprisingly human.” That was a good laugh. I’m not quite sure what she’d been expecting.
But several people today mentioned that they were happy to see they could talk to us. Dan said that, yep, he was drinking beer and shooting fireworks the other night just like many other people. As a group, journalists are no different — no better and no worse — than anyone else.
If you have news, you don’t even need to bother with a formal press release. Just give us a call. Shoot us an e-mail. We’ll make it easy, though we can’t guarantee fireworks and beer.
In a strongly worded message today, the nation’s health care accreditation organization, the Joint Commission, issued a “sentinel alert” that cracks down on rude, demeaning, disruptive and intimidating behavior by physicians and other health care professionals.
In fact, the Joint Commission sounds a bit ticked off about the whole matter, saying such behavior should no longer be tolerated anywhere. They’ve even implemented new rules to address the apparently pervasive problem. Hospitals, home health agencies, outpatient centers and other institutions stand to lose their accreditation if they continue to tolerate this kind of behavior:
Intimidating and disruptive behaviors include overt actions such as verbal outbursts and physical threats, as well as passive activities such as refusing to perform assigned tasks or quietly exhibiting uncooperative attitudes during routine activities. Intimidating and disruptive behaviors are often manifested by health care professionals in positions of power.
Read more about this issue in Thursday’s Business Today.
This is abbreviated (and late) version of Coffee Break. Things are hopping around here at CB HQ.
Here’s one I didn’t expect, but makes perfect sense: the U.S. housing collapse is hurting the Mexican economy. The amount of money sent by Mexican workers, many of whom are in construction, to family in Mexico has fallen over the last two years. Remittances form an astounding 2.8 percent of the Mexican GDP.
Fewer jobs for Mexicans in the U.S. will keep some from crossing the border, but the tougher economic times may drive others north.