Local Opinion: Huckelberry retirement a matter of constituent trust and transparency

Several opinion pieces have appeared recently in the Arizona Daily Star concerning the facts surrounding Chuck Huckelberry’s separation as county administrator for Pima County.

While both appear to be factually correct surrounding the circumstances of his departure, they both come up short in regards to addressing what I believe concerns the majority of the county residents: That the espoused core tenets for effective Pima County government operations, those being in this case 1) trust and 2) transparency, were seemingly ignored or at best minimally prioritized.

Both articles alluded to the fact that Chuck’s departure was accelerated by his unfortunate accident. Yes, I sympathize with many others that the injuries that Chuck suffered were exceptionally brutal and untimely. Yes, I acknowledge that Chuck accomplished much for the residents of Pima County during his tenure as county administrator. And finally, during my entire time living in Tucson, 27 years at that, I believe Chuck exhibited the qualities that we expect from our county employees.

However, human nature is such that even though one may possess the best valued personal attributes, one is not infallible or incapable of being a participant with others in making a “bad decision.” If we are all being honest with ourselves in assessing this situation, we should recognize that personal circumstances, such as Chuck’s injury, is not an excuse to seemingly avoid compliance, or at best minimally comply to the county’s Workplace Ethics, Conduct, and Compliance Policy which states among other things, “County employees are expected to be professional, respectful, fair, unbiased, honest, civic-minded, service-oriented and fiscally responsible at all times.”

I take that this statement is applicable to a variety of the stakeholders involved in this situation, to include Chuck, the County Board of Supervisors, at the time his designated “temporary” replacement for the position of county administrator, the human resources department, and his direct reports. Everyone involved in facilitating Chuck’s transition to “contractor status” should have paused some and assessed whether the way it was being executed met the aforementioned policy guidance. If they had, I believe things would have been done differently and would have at a minimum provided a sense of accountability being applied to the process, a comforting thought for the county residents since we pay Chuck’s salary.

Secondly, government operations at the federal, state, and county levels continue to convey to their constituents the transparent manner in which they propose to conduct operations. In this situation, what could be construed by the taxpayers to have happened, because of the way events unfolded, is that the rules that the taxpayers expected to be followed concerning HR’s functional obligation to inform the relevant stakeholders of Chuck’s change in employment status were not followed.

In the county’s Workplace Ethics, Conduct, and Compliance Policy it specifically spells out examples of what workplace behaviors should be avoided; one being “conducting yourself at all work according to rules that you believe should apply to everyone rather than acting on rules that only apply to you and your value set.” Once again I’ll propose, folks at this point should have paused some and reassessed both 1) what and 2) how events were going down.

Actions have consequences, and it is apparent that all parties involved here did not consider the extent to which Chuck’s change in employment status with the county could have on the various stakeholders involved. As Supervisor Rex Scott highlighted in his published opinion piece, lessons have been learned. If the lessons learned will help ensure that both fair and ethical government operations are being conducted, in an accountable manner for all Pima County stakeholders, at all times, then we have all learned something from this experience worth remembering.