The key to any business is the management and organization at the top levels. No matter how great a product or service, an organization will ultimately fail, or at the very best just be mediocre, if it is not well managed.

When you consider non-profits or public groups, efficiency at the top is of the utmost importance, as they do not have the luxury of having dollars to pay for support personnel as in the private sector.

At our first aldermen meeting of the year Tuesday, we were witness to an almost dysfunctional management style and a total meltdown of order.

An aldermen meeting should never need to run longer than one and a half hours, and an efficient well-informed board should get the information out for the community and each other within one hour.

Prior to a board of aldermen meeting, the mayor and all city departments should give each alderman a summary of the issues at hand.

Each alderman should likewise have sent e-mails and/or made phone calls to each city department heads with requests or questions to minimize the time wasted rambling at bimonthly meetings.

The meeting spent at least one hour with requests and unnecessary questions between aldermen and department heads.

It was obvious that the aldermen were also blindsided by the mayor and city attorney concerning the Arlington drilling contract issue which caused almost 25 minutes of discussion on an issue that should never have happened and put alderman in an no-win situation.

At the conclusion of each meeting, all individual aldermen comments should be a summary and limited to no more than two minutes each.

Some aldermen talk for as long as 10-15 minutes each. Such a waste of our politicians and staff time is unnecessary.

It is time for the citizens of Natchez to evaluate each alderman, the city attorney and mayor as to how they fit into the business they are in, which is our city government and management.

If the citizens of Natchez looked at the management of our city as a for-profit business, I think they would start looking for a new management group to run the business of Natchez.

 

Paris B. Winn

Natchez resident