Friday, January 08, 2016

Governments are customer service organizations, right?

St. Augustine Mayor Nancy Shaver rightly pointed out during her amazing first election campaign in 2014 that governments are "customer service organizations."
It's fun watching local Republican Dictocrats grasp this concept, as with St. Johns County's abortive attempt to modify library hours without asking for the consent of the governed.
Senator J. William Fulbright called it "The arrogance of Power," when referring to the unnecessary, unneeded war in Southeast Asia that our maladroit national leaders inflicted on "We, the People," who did the bleeding, dying, shooting and paying for their vanity of vanities.
As today's St. Augustine Record editorial reveals, the County had a change of heart. Good action.
Now we need a change of leadership, with new Commissioners and new leadership, committed to "We, the People," and not being lickspittles, doormats and rubber-stamps for the powerful.
What do y'all reckon?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

In regards to the Libraries, history has always shown they are the first to get their budgets cut. Yes, "government" is a collective; supposedly for the "common good". A "customer service organization" would be a good analogy. However, something appears to be very wrong with the management of the local libraries. It was revealed in today's St. Augustine Record editorial. The editorial quotes library Director Debra Gibson; "the cut in hours, she says, mitigates the need for cuts in staff and services. The idea is to condense operating hours in order to eliminate double shifts by staff." Huh? She goes on to say; "having full shifts available during operating hours allows for better service-albeit shorter service- to the library patrons". What?!? Supervising any customer service organization involves scheduling of employee shifts. Anyone understand what she means that "better service is shorter service"? Debra Gibson's comments sounds like double-speak to me, and someone should do a "sanity check" to find out what's exactly going is going on with the employee scheduling at our local Libraries, even just to rule out such a possibility. Also, what's up with the armed security guards at the Main Branch. Who is paying how much for that?

Anonymous said...

Gibson will retire soon. Already have a replacement. They are transitioning.