Mayor Diane Delaware said it’s time for a little less talk and a lot more action.
“We tend to talk about the same things over and over again,” she said, during the Board of Mayor and Aldermen meeting. “It is easy to talk about getting a thing done, and it’s easy to say we are going to do something, even around this table. But the organizing, the planning, implementing and monitoring…it is truly a science that doesn’t appear to be held by many of the individuals who are with us and by us, really.”
Although there have been many levels of training for both board members, department heads and other city employees, Delaware said many basic administrative tasks are not being met by some.
Yazoo City is doing much better,” she admits. “But I continue to be faced with administrative tasks being rejected by those who are responsible for them. Certainly, I have done training, and people have gone to training. But I think it is going to be necessary to do some refresher, professional administrative-related training.”
Organization needs to replace talk, Delaware said.
“We really must get more organized in getting things done in a way you get things done,” Delaware said. “It is very easy to discuss, talk, banter, agree, disagree.”
Delaware said she conducted a survey by researching the city council’s board minutes over the last three years. She said she discovered the same topics are discussed, with little action, repeatedly.
“But the actual work that is necessary to be done around the table, the legislative work, actually gets assigned to me,” she said. “And I do it. That’s not day-to-day work. That is legislative work. It would behoove us to focus on what we can do together between our regular board meetings to get work done.”
Some discussions are lengthy with good intentions, but Delaware said there is room for improvement.
“But they don’t have any teeth,” she said. “They don’t have any backbone. From my bit of research, it is an area where we could improve as a team. I think It’s something we might want to focus on.”
