TEAM BUILDING

On Thursday, January 14, The Madden administration held a "team building event" at Pat's Barn in the Rensselaer Technology Park.

Spokesman John Salka explained: "It’s an opportunity for the city’s department heads to communicate with each other about challenges they’re facing and hear what others have to say."

Ken Crowe Two has the story. The event was scheduled for 9:00am to 12:00am, which left no time for paint ball or the barbed wire crawl.

Now - full disclosure - we have a biased against such events. In fact, we still have the rope burns. That said, team building events or exercises are far too corporate for our tastes, organized by people who say things like "windshield time" and "drill down." Since it does smack of the corporate, take a guess as to who came up with this idea?

Notably absent from the meeting were the current Comptroller and the current Commissioner of Economic Development. One would think that if the new team needed information about various challenges, the old team might have been invited. We know that there will be a new comptroller and a new (or no) Commissioner of Economic Development. However, those two individuals probably know more about the city government than anyone else at the meeting. Especially, with Bill Chamberlain gone. We don't know why they were spared but they are sending thank you notes.

Now, for the funniest thing in the story. It seems Mayor Pat invited City Clerk Patricia O'Brien. Instead of a gracious thank you, Council President Mantello "said it was made clear to the mayor that O’Brien is part of the legislative branch of government and is not an administration department head."

Now, Democratus has met a number of elected officials* including House members (never a Senator), council members, three mayors, a deputy mayor or two but never had the privilege of meeting Ms. Mantello. Her statement made one thing crystal clear: she's a talker. Anyone compelled to state the obvious is someone that feels compelled to talk and someone that lacks the self-confidence to not make a statement. Our guess is Madden knows that the City Clerk is a legislative appointee. He probably knew that even before the legislature appointed the clerk. What would possess someone to say what she said? It was made clear to the Mayor....what the fuck?

Ms. Mantello did not illegally change the time of the meeting. So, that's something.

So, she's a talker and we know what they say about talkers.

* In all honesty, each person met was polite, friendly and gracious except for one, but even then it isn't intentional: that person is simply genetically incapable of class or grace.