Mayor Eric Johnson surrenders in his battle against TC Broadnax. In a post on Medium, Johnson said he will work with Broadnax moving forward. The two pledged a collaborative environment moving forward.
As we asked earlier it appears Tristan Hallman is the mayor’s janitor – cleaning up his messes.
Less than two weeks ago Johnson said,” it was time for a change at the top of our city government.” Johnson now realizes he is short the votes needed to remove Broadnax. Johnson has effectively boxed himself into a corner.
Eric Johnson Surrenders
The mayor and city manager have “agreed” to improve personal relations. They will focus their combined attention on several issues.
Those include permitting, public safety, and general city communication.
Permitting may be the biggest issue to tackle.
The city manager will develop a new action plan for permitting delays. It is unclear if he will start anew or use Council Member Blackmon’s recommendations from May.
The plan will move from the usual city system and be customer centric. The goal is to both create systemic improvements in the system, but also respond to issues now.
On public safety, the two have found new friendship. Both Mayor Johnson and City Manager Broadnax say they will work together.
Broadnax has committed to active and timely meet-and-confer negotiations with public safety. This is for both fire and police services.
Broadnax will also continue violence interruption service, lightning improvements, and blight remediation. Violence interruption often has high price tags with questionable results.
The mayor and city manager will also start having biweekly discussion on issues to promote discussion. A few citizens we spoke to already expected this type of communication and were surprised it wasn’t happening already.
Moving forward initiatives like the mayor’s “Summer of Safety” campaign will be a focus.
These issues will receive attention also. They include attracting talent, technology infrastructure, and firefighter concerns.
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