Bureaucracy obstructed Archer’s initiatives

Mayor was blocked by lack of funds, stubborn workforce

David Coates / The Detroit News Mayor Dennis Archer was not confrontational enough to change the city’s massive bureaucracy, his critics contend.

By Cameron McWhirter / The Detroit News

    DETROIT—Sitting around a table with city bus officials about a year ago, Mayor Dennis Archer ran into another roadblock in his efforts to improve city services.

    “We’re sitting around the table, and somebody says ‘This is what we’re doing’ and ‘Yup, we got this done’ and ‘Yes, we got this done’ and so-and-so,” Archer said.

    Then the mayor got to the last official at the table.

    “He just said, ‘No, that’s not the case,’” Archer continued. “And then he pointed out a few things, and I looked at the other person, and I’m saying, ‘Now wait a minute, what is this about?’ We can’t make changes if we’re up there playing hide-and-go-seek. And we’re all supposedly in the same room trying to make a difference.”

    Archer recounted the incident during a meeting with Detroit News editors earlier this year as an example of the internal barriers to change that he has faced while mayor.

    Archer was blocked repeatedly by financial constraints, crises erupting on multiple fronts, and city workers who didn’t want to change their way of thinking.

    Frank Gillespie IV, an administrator at the Lewis College of Business, said Archer wasn’t confrontational enough to really change the city bureaucracy.

    “The civil service system has so many holdovers from the (Mayor Coleman) Young administration and they were so acclimated to a certain way of doing things that there was no way (Archer) was going to turn that around,” Gillespie said. “As a leader, you can issue all these edicts and orders. But by the time they filter down to me, the person who has to do it, I say, ‘Screw you, I’m not doing it.’ What are they going to do to me?”

    Archer had some successes, but major efforts faltered. Key reform efforts that fizzled include:

* Bringing accountability to the way civil servants work. Archer spent much of his second term trying to impose various forms of a merit-based job review system on city employees. He wanted to make city government run more like a large business, where such reviews are standard. City unions and council members torpedoed his proposals.

* Narrowing the focus of city government. Archer tried to sell off the Public Lighting Department and to turn over the bus system to a regional authority. His efforts failed. He still is trying to turn the Detroit Housing Commission into an independent authority, though the City Council and unions oppose the plan.

    Archer, in fact, expanded city government. He added more than 2,000 budgeted positions and he created three new city departments: Youth, Environmental Affairs and Cultural Affairs.

* In public safety. Archer saw a dramatic reduction in crime during his tenure, a decline that mirrored a national trend. But attempts to reform the police into a community-friendly force were hindered by a series of questionable shootings that led the mayor to ask the U.S. Justice Department to investigate the department. The investigation continues.

* In service to residents. The Archer administration spent tens of millions of dollars in cost overruns for a state-of-the-art computer system that was supposed to pay contractors and workers on time and more efficiently manage the city treasury. The system has been plagued by costly computer glitches, missed payments and incorrect billings.

    Archer’s successes include:

* Setting up a corruption task force with the local FBI to investigate allegations of city-employee corruption. Several individuals have been prosecuted under this new arrangement. Archer came into office after Mayor Young’s administration had been rocked by a series of corruption scandals.

* Creation of an Internet Web site that makes available various government forms and other information available. Though Detroit lags behind other cities, it has started to provide information via what computer experts call “e-gov.” Land records, which until this year were available only during business hours and cost $2 a record copy, are now free and available 24 hours a day.