Micro Management

I have taken an interest in the City of White Bluff's Government. Although, I have not attended some of the meetings I manage to keep abreast of what has gone on in the town. I was sorry to hear that the Mayor chastized our town council for requesting that each department within the city government present its budget to the council for review in order to determine whether their request for additional money being requested by these department was justified. I understand that the mayor deflected the request by saying that he did not want the employees to be micro-managed by the town council. That the departments would submit their request to the Mayor and in turn the Mayor would review the request and submit them to the council.

If I were a council member I would not want to vote on a budget if I was not allowed to question the content.

More important is the fact that it does not seem that the Mayor is managing the employees of the town. From what I have observed the employees do pretty much whatever they want. I would think as Mayor, he should look at the town as a business. Allowing the use of public equipment by employees other than for working would not be in the best interest of our tax payers. Such as the instance two weeks ago. I was driving through Fairview Tennessee and observed the White Bluff Fire Truck parking at a store that has been out of business for sometime. There was no one else around the establishment. And definitely no fire or emergency taking place. I drove for a ways and decided to go back. The fire truck passed me at a high rate of speed. I turned around and followed the truck. I observed the truck as it turned on White Bluff Road, then turning again at Beaver Dam Estates. There were no sirenes and I was curious so I followed the truck and found it parked at a residence.
How long the truck was in Fairview, I cannot say, the truck was at the residence for about 15 minutes.
Mr. Mayor, is this acceptable? Unless the Charter has changed,our fire equipment cannot leave the city limits unless there was a fire where we were requested to assist or a fire that was under the protection of our fire department outside the city limits.
Does anyone notice that these trucks roll all over town, I have seen employees drive them to the bank, the CeeBee Store, and for a while daily to the White Bluff Hardware store.
How cost effective is this? These trucks burn a lot of fuel, not to mention that if we had a fire,
the fire truck would have to return to the fire station so that the fire fighters
could dress in their fire fighting gear to be protected. Every minute is important when there is a fire.
My second question is, why is the fire chief who is on salary with the town allowed to drive a school bus during his shift at City Hall. If there is a fire and the Fire Chief is driving a bus on a route, which responsibility does he choose first? Does he drive the children to City Hall and expect the parents pick them up and he goes to fight the fire. Or does he continue on his route and let the someone else deal with the fire. Is he getting paid for doing two jobs in eight hours? How does this work? As Mayor you are responsible for approving any jobs that city employees are allowed to do that do not pertain to the city. Its time the citizens start noticing what is going on around them and question why the Mayor is allowing your tax dollars to be wasted. A picture is worth a thousand words.