Final Thoughts

There are so many fallacies going around regarding the administration of Stuart under Michael Giardino that some want to make his dismissal personal. It isn’t.

This isn’t about Giardino as a human being. It isn’t about his past service to the nation or his ability as an airport director. Giardino was just completely over his head as Stuart’s city manager.

The real blame for the debacle that happened with the budget and staffing should be laid at the feet of Collins, Reed, and Giobbi. Collins and then Reed wanted someone they could control. They wanted to be the city manager, and they found the perfect cipher to carry out their wishes.

In the Navy or maybe as an airport employee, a subordinate takes his marching orders from his superiors. That is not the way city government works in Florida. Technically commissioners have no authority over any staff except the attorney and manager. The city manager can require that commissioners go through him and never speak with staff.

It has been a little different in Stuart, but no commissioner should be issuing orders to anyone. They set policy that the manager and his staff then carry out. Commissioners don’t determine what employees do what task or how many are hired and who is fired. Unfortunately, Giardino never figured that out. He was used as a tool to deliver a dictated end by the Politburo.

It all came to a point in the finance area. I have written extensively about how nothing was being done right in that department, from the setting of the millage rate to the audit, to even reconciling bank accounts for the past several months, which had not been done. It probably is just shy of criminal but not by much.

If this was any other time in the city’s history at least in this century, there would have been capable department heads to pick up the slack. The entire finance department was decimated by the Politburo putting their hands into the mix and ordering staff to do things that no professional city manager would allow.

The City of Stuart will take several years to recruit new people to work not only in finance but throughout the bureaucracy. If you have tried to have a permit approved by the development department, I bet you have had to jump through hoops for anything more complicated than a water heater. No one is doing anything. There certainly is no accountability at present.

The new commission majority could not wait to go through a months-long search for a new city manager. The city would have probably stopped receiving state money because of the absence of the required audit. Michael Mortell was willing and able to come back to right the ship that had come way off course since he left. In the past few years since the Politburo took over, the city had become dysfunctional.

Mortell knows the city and has the ability to hit the ground running after the devastation of the Politburo. Collins, Reed, and Giobbi got what they wanted in Giardino as a city manager which was an empty vessel who would do their bidding. Unfortunately, they were even more incompetent than the manager. And Giardino didn’t know enough to understand what was happening.

That doesn’t mean that Mortell is completely off the hook either. He can’t allow the sloppiness that had crept into his first administration to pervade his second tenure. He owes the city sound and prudent professional management. Mortell needs to hold his staff accountable for their departments. They are supposedly the experts in their fields, but first and foremost they are the managers of their subordinates. Mortell may be hired and fired by the commission, but he is responsible to every resident, businessperson, and taxpayer.  

Giardino said he wanted to always be a city manager, but it takes more than wanting to be successful at any profession. It takes education and experience. He had none. And it showed.

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Friends and Neighbors of Martin County is your eyes and ears so that you know what is going on in Martin County’s municipal and county governments. I attempt to be informative and timely so that you may understand how your tax money is being spent. Though I go to the meetings and report back, I am no substitute for your attending meetings. Your elected officials should know what is on your mind.

Tom Campenni 772-341-7455 (c) Email: thomasfcampenni@gmail.com