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Accountability missing at top
To the Editor:
As a citizen, I'm compelled to respond to Haverhill's latest in a long line of serious mismanagement debacles regarding city employee oversight. Any city or school employee that has scammed the system at the expense of the taxpayers should be appropriately punished.
However, the fact that a city employee was able to spend four months in jail recently, without Haverhill's CEO, Mayor James Fiorentini, and the fire chief knowing about it until the end of the sentence is unbelievable.
This is especially remarkable considering the assurances we heard from the mayor that the firefighters were in his headlights. Mayor Fiorentini spied on firefighters' "sick time" but forgot to keep track of their "hard time."
In the past couple of days I've heard and read about all the excuses of how this can happen, such as existing union contracts protecting employees. Sure, union contracts pose barriers and new ones need to be established, but you can't blame the contracts for management falling asleep behind the wheel, over and over again.
It is crystal clear that better management is not currently possible. Our taxpayers deserve a culture change, better communications and mutual respect between employees and management. For some employees, the mayor and the fire chief, the will to work together on behalf of the citizens does not exist.
Consequently, for starters, I recommend that the city take action to pull the fire chief's position out of civil service and find a manager that will be accountable to the people. This will require both local and state action, which will take time. It was successfully accomplished for the police chief and the auditor positions in Haverhill.
What is happening now is an embarrassment for Haverhill. It's time for the City Council to step up and hold the mayor accountable, who in turn, must hold his managers accountable.
John Michitson
119 Kenoza St.
Haverhill
