CITY, CRITICISM AND CONFUSION
THE “ICE, SWEAT and Jeers” article [“Inside Dallas, February”] stated that I had criticized city employees for their lack of productivity after their performance in the ice storm. This is not correct. In fact, I asked City Manager Charles Anderson to have the employees who were responsible for the very good service we got during the ice storm to come to [the] chambers during the City Council meeting so that we could give them recognition for their meritorious service.
I would further like to point out that I think we have a confusion of terms between city employees and city staff. I believe that you will find that most times when a City Council member refers to the city staff, he’s usually talking about those employees of the city who are department heads or higher. These people make a minimum of $50,000 per year or more, which separates them from the rank-and-file [employees] and therefore [makes them] subject to closer scrutiny.
When I first joined the Council, the city’s productivity was not at a level that I found acceptable, and while it still is not where I want it, the city manager and his staff have positioned themselves to move in the right direction and give a performance that I know we will all be proud of.
It is my opinion that city employee morale, particularly below the executive level, is lower than it should be, and this is a problem that we are trying to address and find solutions to. I hope this will serve to clear up the confusion that I feel was caused by this article, and I appreciate your desire to make sure that the facts are reported correctly.
Paul N. Fielding
Councilman
City of Dallas
CHECKING OUT LIBRARY’S LOSSES
THUMBS DOWN TO D Magazine for not supporting the Dallas Public Library in their efforts to retrieve “permanently borrowed” materials [“Inside Dallas,” February]. The real “roadblocks to learning” are those people who have abused the concept of the free public library and have appropriated for their own use the materials that belong to all the citizens of a community.
Those who build home libraries from public resources should bear full legal and financial responsibility for their actions. There is no reason that all the taxpayers of a city should absorb these losses. When books are gone from library shelves for periods of many months or years, the damage done to the rights of other library patrons far exceeds the (not insignificant) dollars-and-cents value of the missing books.
Janet Vance
Richardson
CREATIVITY VS. BUREAUCRACY
I ENJOYED YOUR editorial “Can We Be Creative and Managerial, Too?” [“Editor’s Page,” February], possibly because it expresses my sentiments. From my observation, corporations spend too much of their time and their companies’ money preparing five-year projections, management by objective and budgets; it is really very complicated and time-consuming. Yet, as corporations, we talk about the bureaucracy in Washington while many times ignoring the bureaucracy in our own businesses.
One thing that is now happening-and it seems to be a trend of the times-is that many organizations are run by executives who really have had no feel for the particular business in which they are involved. They are trying to work from management principles that they have learned in various schools, but they aren’t really knowledgeable of the product itself. As a result, in today’s corporations, much of the dedication and effort of key people who work for these top executives is lost.
Russell H. Perry
Chairman of the Board and CEO
Republic Financial Services Inc.
Dallas
CREATIVITY IN BUSINESS is an obvious element of successfully meeting the challenges of global competition. Actually, the theme of your editorial is close to the long-held thesis of Dr. Mortimer J. Adler that business people should be freed from the “barbarism of specialization” through exposure to study of the classics and intellectual renewal.
By the way, management processes should support the purpose of the organization, not become a central purpose.
A. A. Meitz
Senior Vice President
Booz, Allen & Hamilton Inc.
Dallas
MORE ON MOTTA
MIKE SHROPSHIRE needs to get his facts straight about Dick Motta’s championship season as coach of the Washington Bullets [“The Motta Method,” February]. The year was 1978, not 1977, and the Bullets did not come back from a 3-1 deficit. The Bullets won the seventh game of the final series, which was deadlocked at 1-1, 2-2 and 3-3.
F. Jules Lund Jr.
San Antonio
AS A NATIVE Idahoan, I’m obligated to correct one point in Mike Shropshire’s fine story on Mavericks coach Dick Motta. It was in Grace, Idaho-not Utah-that Motta did his first coaching. His teams were the terror of the old Idaho 5th District conference.
Success at Grace led to Motta’s first and only college coaching job at Weber State in Ogden, Utah. Those great Weber teams brought more than one tear to my eyes by continually beating the good Idaho State teams I had thought would be contenders for the Big Sky Conference crown.
After Weber, it was the big time for Motta with the Chicago Bulls. But it all began in Grace, Idaho, just 60 miles from my hometown, Pocatello. That’s where Judy Garland was born in a trunk, but that’s another story.
Bill Ryan
United Press International
Dallas
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