THE City Council set a dangerous precedent this week by questioning the effectiveness of one particular branch of city government, the Department of Sid. City Council
struck out with El SidAs departments go, it isn't a real money gobbler. It has only one employee, former professional baseball player Sid Fernandez. The Department of Sid was set up to market the new professional sports complexes. The entire department, that is, Sid himself, pulls down only 50 grand a year, which is chump change compared to what he was making after he helped the New York Mets win the World Series.
Mayor Jeremy Harris scouted far and wide for the perfect person to promote the new sports facilities. He eventually decided Sid was perfect because of his vast experience being the only guy in Hawaii who pitched in the World Series for the New York Mets. You have to admit, if that's your criteria for the job, there isn't a real deep talent pool in Hawaii to choose from.
Now, the situation would have been different if Mayor Harris had been searching for, say, a brain surgeon or someone to conduct a comprehensive, in-depth analysis of the city's financial history. But he didn't. He needed El Sid. Because if you are going to create a new city office called the Department of Sid, you might as well go with the real deal.
So this week, the City Council suddenly discovered that the Department of Sid has kind of been working on the uku pau system, that is, when there's work to be done, he does it and when there's no work to be done, he doesn't do it. I've always been a strong proponent of the uku pau system. If more people just did their work and then went home, government would work a lot better. Instead, we have a bunch of paper pushers who try to justify their positions by looking busy. In government, work expands to fill time.Sid doesn't understand this concept. In baseball, there was no such thing as "busy work." You were either in the game or on the bench. If you were on the bench, you didn't waste your time rearranging the bats or polishing the helmets. When it was time to pitch, you'd go pitch, then you were pau.
City Councilperson Donna Kim asked Sid why he hasn't been filing reports and doing all kinds of other stuff to make it look like he's earning those 50 big ones he doesn't even actually need. Sid stared back, sort of perplexed, as if he were watching someone shag fly balls wearing a cocktail dress and hiking boots. It wasn't cool detachment as much as it probably was sincere mystification of the council as a whole, like someone watching an alien race.
The council inquisition took on the element of a pop quiz when Sid was asked when the Japanese baseball season started. Sid probably thought at that point the council was confusing him with Sadaharu Oh, the Japanese baseball great.
Sid, who's new to the political patronage game, didn't have enough experience to cleverly evade the question with some kind of Clintonesque dodging. He simply said he didn't know when the Japanese baseball season started.
That brought a round of harumphs from around the council chambers.
Let's get real here. First off, savvy politicians ganging up on a guy whose only claim to fame is that he used to throw a baseball real hard is not a fair fight.
More importantly, if the City Council is going to start hauling in every city employee who makes $50,000 a year and interrogating them about what they do to justify their salaries, they are going to be extremely busy. And, they'll find out that there are quite a few offices that aren't even running as well as the Department of Sid.