Mayor Franklin masters ‘indirect leadership,’ different from getting ‘Philly’ on folks
July 22, 2008 at 10:39 am by Thomas Wheatley in NewsGoverning Magazine, a great policy mag whose recent article about Atlanta’s gentrification craze we already linked to yesterday, published a mini-profile on its website about Mayor Shirley Franklin and her mos def of deft skills: “indirect leadership.” The profile’s author, Stephen Goldsmith, is a former mayor of Indianapolis, and by golly, he knows good leadership when he sees it.
The gist of the story: When Franklin took office, the city had two separate courts — one for traffic and moving violations, one for all other city-code violations. Franklin saw low-hanging fruit and reached out to pluck it. Since she had no direct control over the city’s justice department, she gathered support in the legal community and was open with the judges involved. With the help of a pro bono analysis conducted by a consulting group, Franklin was able to consolidate the court operations and personnel. The move saved $7 million. Additional reforms created the “single, technology-driven paperless court” Goldsmith discusses in his article. The city’s court budget has been trimmed a total of $19 million, he says.
What are some examples of Franklin’s “direct leadership” skills?
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July 22nd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
The most obvious is Mayor Franklin’s leadership on Clean Water. She lead the City at a critical juncture in finding the financial resources to fund both court-ordered wastewater improvements, EPD encouraged and much needed drinking water improvements and various other programs to round out watershed management. To achieve this she fought or dealt with no less than: (1) Atlanta City Council; (2) the Ga General Assembly; (3) radical activist residents; (4) fringe environmental groups; (5) bad contractors; (6) leftover Bill Campbell bureaucracies; (7) federal and state agencies; (8) neighboring jurisdictions including Fulton County and the new cities in North Fulton; (9) the Fulton County Taxpayers’ Association; and on and on and on. Not only that, she has stuck with the fight and seems to want to continue once out of office by seeking more federal support for Atlanta’s residents who now live with the highest combined water/sewer rates in the United States.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
By “indirect leadership” does Goldsmith mean that Franklin somehow indirectly governed the City of Atlanta during her second term by never being in the city?
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:00 pm
Someone should thank the Mayor (aka ATL) for posting another comment on CL.
I am sick and tired of politicians taking credit for doing their damn job. The federal government mandated that we do something about our godforsaken water system. The mayor didn’t CHOOSE to take this on, it was forced on her by circumstance. What was she going to do…let the feds take over our water system? It’s her job and she did it. (As an aside, I’m not as eager as ATL is to pat Shirley on the back for more than doubling my water bill over four years. But as I said, she did address the problem)
I, for one, would be embarrassed to do just what is required of me and then trumpet that passable work. If only Shirley required passable work of our police chief, then maybe criminals would stop breaking into my house/car and stealing my shit.