An Occasion for Compassion and Respect

The big story this week from Largo (not Key Largo, but a West Coast town), Florida has a little bit of everything in it. I don't think any ethics code would deal with what occurred, but the situation certainly raises a number of important ethical issues in a municipal government context.

The story involves a city manager's announcement that he was going to change his gender, and, one week later, the city commission's vote (5 to 2) to put him on paid leave and begin the process of firing him.

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Married and with a 13-year-old son, the city manager planned to make the announcement a few months into the hormonal process, long before any operations, so that his son would be away at camp when the hatred was at its height. He had told his wife and a small number of city officials, and one of the officials apparently leaked the story to the press, forcing his announcement three months early.

The biggest mistake that was made was holding a public hearing one week after the announcement, before people's immediate feeling of discomfort and anger could die down, and city officials and the media could try to educate residents and, especially, city employees (a first public information and discussion event, without any thought of action, would have been preferable). Commissioners said from the day of the announcement that all would depend on staff and community reaction, but why would anyone make such an important decision (the city manager had fourteen years under his belt) based on first reactions rather than thoughtful discussion over time? There was no emergency, the city manager was not coming to work in a dress, nothing had changed except perceptions.

It is ironic that, in speaking of the reasons for their decision, commissioners referred not to the sex-change decision, but to the city manager's lack of judgment, because they showed such a serious lack of judgment in the timing of the hearing.

They also said they had lost confidence in the city manager's ability to lead, but they seem to have fallen short on this, as well. In the hand of good leadership, the city manager's announcement could have been the occasion for an important ongoing community conversation about an uncomfortable, controversial topic we rarely think about. Instead the commissioners allowed the loudest voices to be heard, and then said the people had spoken. (To see an excellent range of voices, although more frequently liberal, surely, than the town as a whole, click here.)

It is true that commissioners, as elected officials, are supposed to do what their constituents want. But don't they also have an obligation to educate the citizenry, to make long-term rather than short-term decisions, and to prevent not only hateful treatment of someone going through private agony, but also what turned out to be national humiliation? Too often elected officials hide behind the term 'democracy' either to have a good excuse to do what they want (especially when it is embarrassing) or when they are worried about being re-elected. 'Democracy' means far more than doing what the majority wants (I am assuming that the majority of Largo residents, at least in the first week, were shocked and wanted to see the city manager go; their e-mails to the commissioners were largely in favor of removal). Democracy is a set of values that includes compassion, respect, justice, accountability, and an informed public. Democracy is not about the tyranny of a shocked, uninformed, angry majority. That is why Largo is being humiliated for what it has done (not for its city manager's personal decision), even though most people, like them, are naturally very uncomfortable with the idea of someone, not to mention a long-time community leader, changing gender.

The values of compassion and respect here are, I think, the most important (we too often focus on justice, in this case, on rights). The decision to undergo a gender change is part of an agonizing process by a person who has been uncomfortable with himself for a long time. It shows a deep lack of compassion and respect to kick someone when he is down, that is, when his decision comes out unexpectedly, when he is in the midst of explaining his decision to his son, and when he has had the courage to be completely frank about everything, something we have seen one outed politician after another fail to do.

The lack of compassion and respect shown by the majority of commissioners is evidence of the most fundamental conflict of interest there is: when an elected official does what is comfortable for him or her (either in terms of their personal feelings or religious beliefs, or in terms of their worries about standing up against an angry minority or, even, majority) rather than even make an effort to go through the sort of ethical reasoning that is central to democratic rule. Elected officials have a fiduciary duty to do what is best for the community, not what is best for themselves. If they want to do what is best for themselves, the private sector holds a great deal of opportunity.

Why not relinquish their positions in favor of mob rule? It's no coincidence that some of the people who participated in the on-line discussion compared the situation to the mob chasing Frankenstein in the movies. Better would have been the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird when the mob calls for the death of an innocent black man.

The best argument made in favor of firing the city manager is that he fired several employees because their conduct outside work made the city look bad and, therefore, he should also be fired, since his conduct makes the city look bad. No one convincingly explains why his conduct makes the city look bad, but if this were so, they would have a good point.

Were the city manager to have thought of himself first, he would have sought a job in a city that would be more accepting of a transgendered person and that would have hired her knowing everything up front. Perhaps, if he had been given time, as he planned, he would have talked with officials and other community leaders and decided that Largo was not going to accept him and that it would be best for it and himself to leave. In any event, that is the course he will be forced to take, and the reaction to the way he has been treated will most likely make cities more open to hiring him.

And this might make other elected officials see that such difficult situations require compassion and respect as well as educating the community and bringing it together to discuss rather than to give a thumb up or down.

To read more about this situation, try two recent St. Petersburg Times articles here and here.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics