My Turn: John MacKinnon deserves a fair shot at the city manager's job
This community is blessed with talented public servants and I believe we have an especially dedicated cadre of people who work for the City and Borough of Juneau. There is also no question that our mayor and Assembly members have - through the years - been an exceptionally talented of municipal officials.
Through the more than 30 years that my family has lived in this town, challenges to the CBJ have been addressed and solved with skill and fervor by our public officials. And often the person who led the way in fashioning strategies to overcome these challenges has been the city manager.
Juneau's charter provides for a strong city manager form of government. In essence, that means the quality of government often rides on the shoulders of the city manager. An inept city manager - and we have a few in the past - inevitably leads to disarray in the CBJ's line departments. Morale slumps, services suffer and the CBJ taxpayer is short-changed.
Put simply, the person who holds the job of city manager is critical to the successful functioning of the CBJ.
I guess that's why I am distressed that the Assembly recently voted to eliminate John MacKinnon as a candidate for the vacant city manager's job. MacKinnon's family has deep roots in Juneau and he served three terms on the CBJ Assembly. And it is MacKinnon's Assembly service that is creating roadblocks for him in his desire to be considered as a permanent replacement for former City Manager Dave Palmer.
Palmer left the city manager's post on June 30. MacKinnon was appointed as acting city manager on June 24, and by everyone's yardstick, has done an outstanding job for the past six months. Yet now he's out as a candidate for the city manager's job.
What's the problem, you ask? Two provisions in the CBJ's charter.
Section 4.2 of the charter says that no Assembly member can be appointed as city manager "... unless at least two years have intervened since the expiration of the assemblymember's last term on the assembly and the date of appointment."
The effect on MacKinnon's candidacy is that - due to this charter provision - he is ineligible to assume the city manager's job until Oct. 16, 2003. This situation is further complicated by another provision in the CBJ charter which says that "... in no case may an acting manager serve for more than one year."
Coupling these two CBJ charter provisions means that if MacKinnon were to be appointed permanently to the manager's position next October, there would be more than three months in which he would be prohibited from holding either the acting manager's job, or the permanent job as manager.
There are creative ways in which the Assembly could keep MacKinnon's candidacy alive, and ultimately appoint him as permanent manager. However, at least for me, the issue isn't charter hurdles, procedural hoops or creative alternatives to keep MacKinnon as city manager.
The bottom line policy issues - in my opinion - are: is John MacKinnon qualified for the job as manager, and if so, what steps need to be taken to insure that he is given a fair opportunity to be considered as a candidate for the job.
I strongly believe that this town can search far and wide - and spend a ton of money and time in the process - looking for a new manager but we will never find a person more qualified to hold the job than John MacKinnon.
My plea to the Assembly is simple: please reconsider your decision made last Friday, and if you do not want to craft a solution which would result in MacKinnon being tapped as manager, as least fashion a process which does not effectively knock him out of the running for the job. He simply should not be penalized for his past Assembly service, and is the net effect - perhaps unintended - of Friday's Assembly vote.
MacKinnon deserves - and has earned - a fair shot at the CBJ manager's job.
Jerry Reinwand was Gov. Jay Hammond's top aide during his second term and served as aide for then-Sen. Frank Murkowski in his Washington, D.C., office. He is now a lobbyist and has small-business interests in Juneau with his family.