An Editorial...The First 60 Days

City Manager Bruce Johnson has completed his first 60 days as Grove City Manager, at a salary of $105,000, or $20,000 more than the previous city manager who had 30 years experience.

So how's the young fella doing?
In just 60 days:

--He has managed to get rid of the police chief.
--He has managed to get rid of the city attorney.
--He has poor manners, offending female visitors to his office by putting his feet up on his desk, and refusing to return phone calls.
--He does not communicate well with his own employees.
--He has never returned a single phone call to The Observer, in an attempt to censor the news.
--He has been described as arrogant and a "mini-Ball."
--He has ignored 10 months of work by the Blue Ribbon Committee, saying he wants to put together a new five year plan for city projects.
--He is planning to bypass the Planning & Zoning Board, setting discussion of changing the height zoning agreements at the Sept. 18 City Council meeting.
--He watches good citizens abandon their positions on the various trust authority boards, and approves appointments of people who will be "yes men" to the new council.
--He ignores the fact that his salary is paid by all the taxpayers in Grove, not just the ones that voted for the new council in April.
--He has doubled his salary in one year, from the City of Dewey, Ok, and with a 9-month severance check if he gets fired before his one-year contract is up. Only 305 days to go.

With any luck, he can make a half million cool ones by 2011 when the next big Council election is held. By then, many of the senior citizens hauled out of nursing homes to vote will have passed away, unaware of Sherman's March Across Georgia.

Apparently Johnson's orders were stapled to his office door upon arrival July 1 and he is following them to the letter. It would have served him better if he had come here giving signs of wanting to work for ALL of Grove's citizens rather than just one faction, in this city clearly carved in half. Look for more good people to be fired just because they were hired or were endorsed by the previous city manager.