Even Auburn Mayor Timothy Lattimore's harshest critics will often say that he does have a vision for what he would like to see done. Whether they agree with him or not, they see the mayor is an “idea” man. Yet, when it comes to “doing,” which is the other half of governing, he is falling short. Governing is more than just the “vision thing;” it is about getting things done. As has been seen in recent months this may be the mayor's biggest stumbling block and weakness.

Take just one issue - restructuring the city's management structure. The mayor talks a great deal about how the city's management team needs to be made more efficient; and that may mean anything from consolidations and mergers to transferring responsibilities and personnel cuts. Yet, through months of jawing, as Winston Churchill might have called it, the city is seemingly no further along than it was when he talked about these changes back in the spring.

It is now fall and the city is faced with the same structures that it had heading into last year's budget debacle. With a quarter of the fiscal year down on Saturday, no cost savings, through restructuring have been acted on. In fact there seems to be no specific proposals, at least publicly, out there for action.

As a result, a number of departments from fire and police to planning and economic development are in limbo. They are the center of restructuring talk, but there seems to be no focus on whether changes will occur or when they will even come up for discussion and/or votes. The easy response from the mayor and other restructuring proponents is that these departments can still do their work while the city council reviews and discusses. What that type of response misses is that these departments shouldn't be operating, planning and working day to day - they should be acting long term.

The failure to bring restructuring talk to a fixed time for discussion and vote is wearing on city staff and, frankly, holds out a false hope for savings for taxpayers that may never be realized.

To go further, this endless and un-acted-upon talk has most likely hampered the possible hiring and retention of some city staff.

At the 11th hour this week, it was still not clear whether acting Fire Chief Terry Winslow would be offered the position of chief permanently or be asked by Interim City Manager Michael Long to stay “acting” for another three months. This, as his “acting” status was set to expire in mere hours.

The mayor and those who support restructuring need to move from snappy comments, very general plans and endless platitudes on the need to restructure and either act or bring the discussion to an end.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be e-mailed at cozguytho@aol.com