The only thing
better than Blake Guillory getting the job at SFWMD and leaving SWFWMD would be
if he took Carlos Beruff with him. Between the two of them, the long term
damage they have done to water management in southwest Florida is
incalculable.
 |
| Blake Guillory |
Any staffer of
SWFWMD of the last two years will tell you (if they are certain their anonymity
will be protected) it has been Beruff who has been the most demanding and
ruthless in dismantling the district's ability to do the job it is
prescribed by law to do. And, of course, it has been Guillory who has
rolled into Tampa every Monday morning from Jupiter to carry out Beruff's and
CEO Scott's dirty work. Guillory, who never actually established residency in
SWFWMD during his tour as ED, would then pack it up every Friday and troop back
to his home in Jupiter.
Now he's vying for
the job at SFWMD where he has had consulting experience. Good for
him. Good for SWFWMD. Bad for the
SFWMD. Guess he just wants to shorten his commute because it’s being said
he won't be getting an increase in pay despite the tougher row he will have to
hoe there. Sort of makes one ask, what is his real motive for all this
destruction and job hopping?
 |
| Carlos Beruff |
Beruff has a long
history of having tiffs with regulatory bodies, demonstrated by the projects he
has proposed as a successful developer and the permits he has fought over He has clearly earned his reputation of
having no regard for Florida's delicate natural systems. He brought that
attitude with him to SWFWMD and at Scott's direction proceeded to weaken,
disrupt and destroy a truly effective and much needed water management
system that was developed by governors and legislators from both parties over the last 50 years. Now Scott and the army of Beruffs he has entrenched at every water management district in Florida have determined, insanely, all of that was wrong.
It is the likes of
Beruff and the unthinking execution of ill-advised public policy promulgated by
a totally uninformed and inexperienced multi-millionaire governor who has
brought environmental protection in Florida to its knees.
It isn't likely to
happen, of course, but nothing could be better than if Beruff were to go away
like Guillory seems about to do.
It can't be bad if
they both bail because no replacement for either of them could possibly be
more disastrous for water management in southwest Florida.
Hey folks, you remember Sonny's blog on the SWFWMD staff survey? You might recall the percentage of staff that were happily employed at SWFWMD was extremely low. Well Mr. Guillery, being the "modern manager" that he is set staff morale as his highest priority for this year. Well by golly I think he actually achieved it all on his own, well sort of as the Governor's office helped, but let's not be picky. He got the job at SFWMD and the staff here at SWFWMD couldn't be happier. Haven't seen so many smiling faces in a long while. He's like a bad gift that you get and then re-wrap and give to someone else. One one should feel bad for doing that to SFWMD as it recently lost its sphincter but now has a new one.
ReplyDeleteA cause for cautious optimism. But...no cartwheels yet. If we don't get off our collective self-righteous asses and fire Scott and all like him next year, we'll get exactly what we deserve...more of Beruff and worse than Guillory.
ReplyDeleteA cause for cautious optimism. But...no cartwheels yet. If we don't get off our collective self-righteous a___s and fire Scott and all like him next year, we'll get exactly what we deserve...more of Beruff and worse than Guillory.
ReplyDeleteLet's watch Blake destroy SFWMD like he destroyed SWFWMD. I bet there are some sad faces in South Florida today. Now if only Beruff would disappear......
ReplyDeleteThe best Board meeting was watching Carlos argue with District staff over the price being paid for a piece of equipment and then telling staff how to purchase it. When the staff told him that was illegal and against the state procurement laws, his look was priceless. He did not have a clue what he was taking about. Government agencies cannot always do the same things as private companies. What a way for a Board member to "set policy"...
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to be part of something you might want to take 5 or 10 minutes and learn something about the organization if you REALLY cared...
Amen! Gotta really watch developers & their associates, & govt employees with no understanding of rules often indicate a prior habit of ignoring or circumventing rule of law in private business, too. Without ongoing oversight with teeth, water mgmt will get even worse, & tier 1 & 2 top dogs seem to be immune to getting busted when they screw up.... If policies are set for short term gain, as is the norm, nothing will change unless it affects their personal profit margins or until all agree an honorable, unbuyable person is at the helm with clout to raise holy hell. Let's see what effect the whistleblower laws have, & each resident must commit to helping.
DeleteAmen! Gotta really watch developers & their associates, & govt employees with no understanding of rules often indicate a prior habit of ignoring or circumventing rule of law in private business, too. Without ongoing oversight with teeth, water mgmt will get even worse, & tier 1 & 2 top dogs seem to be immune to getting busted when they screw up.... If policies are set for short term gain, as is the norm, nothing will change unless it affects their personal profit margins or until all agree an honorable, unbuyable person is at the helm with clout to raise holy hell. Let's see what effect the whistleblower laws have, & each resident must commit to helping.
DeleteSo I wonder why Tallahassee (that would be the secretary of FDEP) was so involved in forcing Mr. Guillory upon the governing board of the SFWMD. Could it be that Tallahassee (that would be the secretary of FDEP) already has his replacement lined up? Greg Munson knows the answer!
ReplyDeleteI don't think that anyone would disagree in wishing Guillory a good riddance and wishing he took Carlos with him. But before jumping for joy, lets see who Scott and his gang find as the replacement. As much as I would like to agree with you Sonny, "replacement for either of them could possibly be more disastrous for water management in southwest Florida," I am going to withhold judgment and comment. The replacement and degree of disaster to the water resources will most likely depend on who is contributing to Scott's reelection.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting to note that some SFWMD board members voted against Guillory because of the way he got the position. Unfortunately one can only assume that the same process (i.e., nation wide search limited to the office of the candidate that Scott and DEP want) will be followed at SWFWMD.
Note the decline of candidate funding as has been the norm in the past, & the rise of "dark money" funding. Fortunately, much of this growing Phenom is being followed.
DeleteThe selection of a new executive director will be done the same way it was done the last time. A make belive interview process and the governor's guy or gal put inplace, credentials or experience not required, other than a big box of Chap Stick. SFWMD hired Melissa Meeker without any interview process and the Governor took some heat, so he made sure SWF put on a show, when the selection was made well before any of the interviews. Well he did it again at SFWMD, so you can bet SWF will do a make believe hiring process and lo and behold, just like Beruff being elected the Chairman 2 months ago when he wasn't in the progression of board officers, Tallahassee will put who they want to head the District. My question is, why do these board members bother to be on the board? They've become nothing but bobble heads.
ReplyDeleteBlake Guillory stated his number one priority for 2013 was to restore morale at SWFWMD (after he ruined it of course) and he DID accomplish just that, BY LEAVING!
ReplyDeleteI wonder if employees at SFWMD will get the same introductory speech by him using his story about how older people are stuck in their ways and can't learn? Or maybe telling them if they don't like it here I95 runs North and South! Fun times are ahead for SFWMD employees.
People think he did such a great job changing the direction of the SWFWMD and it's budget. The fact is, the SWFWMD was financially sound before he came by setting aside funds for major water supply projects in the future instead of spending all the extra revenue they received during the boom. He did get the operating budget in check and lay off about 150 people in the process...sure. But I believe anybody could have done it better and more humane then him, and its not like he did any of the work. Basically he told upper management, "this is what I came to do, so get it done or you're out".
ReplyDeleteMorale is an all-time low. The Cooperative Funding process is still what he called it before he came on....an ATM machine (I mean really, they fund just about everything that comes through the door). The OGC he brought on has held up contracts for so long, that the District is so back-logged its just now getting contracts executed for projects that should have been done over 6 months ago. Anybody who says the District is still providing the same level of service is giving you lip service. Just ask anybody in Land Management. The communication, which was cited as a major issue in the Royal Highlands study, is ten times worse. Nobody in upper management can make a simple decision without running it thru the man. The changes in the signature authority is a joke. It's bad enough that almost everything made its way through him, but it would sit there awaiting his return from somewhere.
A year or two from now, we will see what a great leader he is at SF because they have real financial problems. Lets see how he getting there operating down where a significant part is allocated to their structures. Lets see him ramp up that Cooperative Funding program down there. I think he should bring the same goals he had at SWF to SF. Something like 50% of the budget should go to projects....what a joke....HA HA HA! Oh, and someone watch out for them big payouts before he leaves and then accrues another lump sum of hours on the new job. I'm sure Mr. JD Alexander wouldn't like that ;-)
Anyways.....things could always get worse. At least you would hope he was almost done with his promises. Now that he's gone someone else will want to make their own news story. Hopefully Robert Beltran takes over, because if someone like Jon Steverson or some DEP clown comes through there, who knows what kind of destruction they would do.
Regarding the last comment, I to have seen the cooperative funding program take a 180. It seems all the progress made on permits in terms of shortening times of review have been added double to getting contracts, work orders and payments. We used to get approvals within 30 to 45 days on average (including local signatures) is now several months or MORE! Work orders take follow the previously approved contract scopes and overall budgets now take weeks to months as they are over scrutinized and then sent into the abyss as signoff is required by a minimum of 5 staffers with the role of Pontius Pilate played by Mr. Beltran, who has micro managed the program into slow motion, apparently looking to impress his bosses by to saying he's saveed a dollar but doesn't mention that in the process the process he's caused the spending $2 in redundency in having not only his staff revise and resubmit, but the cost on cooperators (local governments) to adjust insignificant scope changes and budget items. Keep i mind these are lump sum agreements that at the end of the day the cooperators or service providers must do whatever ittakes to deliever the required product. Weren't all these private sector guys supposed to understand the impact to the private sector and delays in project implementation? All that has been shown by the highest level of the executive office Beltran, General Council and Guillery (the others are to afraid to speak up) have shown is that they are inexperinced in managing large governmental operations and the processess associated with them, and have only ADDED to the bureaucracy by requiring more paper work, more signatures and more accounting. My question is, what is the basis for this? Has there been past waste? Has there been fraud? No, what it is, is that not only did they sweep out much of the technical expertice, but more so the seasoned adminstrators that had learned from experieince what was important and what was not, all with a goal of eliminating delays. Mid level and senior level managers are inexperienced, not suited for management as they have better technical skills then managerial skills and as mentioned are to timid to speak out for fear of being tossed. You only have to measure the amount of time it takes for these things to see that this is correct. Don't believe this, then look at the dates onwhen the paperwork starts and gets approved and more importantly the big monitoring measurment, the budget numbers that shown how much money went out as payments since Guillery came on as compared to previously, relative to what was taken in. Those 8 month delays on contracts and then month delays in work orders approvals have left all that cash just sitting there, something that Carlos Beruff beat up the prior management team on, but has been noticably quite about it with his team. What's the saying paralysis by analysis. Sad that the only ability these private sector guys have brought to the table is the ability to blow smoke up Carlos' butt.
ReplyDeleteDear Sonny; My hired hand writting expert can't figure out who is posting these comments so I can't find out who these people are and therefore I'm having trouble going after them and getting them fired from where ever they work.
ReplyDeleteFrustrated in Manatee County
Carlos Beruff
Try hiring a gumshoe to follow the trail of delays. Ineptitude or complicity between actors at ea level, plus budget issues.
DeleteI wonder if the bigger picture to the project delays, and other activities, is to provide an excuse to get ride of the WMDs?
ReplyDelete