Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

COMMENTARY
Coleman?’s newest hire is step in right direction
Friday, April 02, 2004
BARBARA CARMEN


Joyce Bushman, former Pickerington city manager, is assistant chief of staff to Mayor Michael B. Coleman.


Tom Moody, a former Columbus mayor, once offered the best management advice I?’ve ever heard. In essence: When you have thousands of people working for you, at least one will employ his imagination in the wrong direction.
''You can?’t control every single person who works for you,'' Moody said. ''The best you can do is to react appropriately.''
So while Joyce Bushman, Mayor Michael B. Coleman?’s newest hire, carries the title of assistant chief of staff, she will unofficially be in charge of appropriate reactions.
Bushman, 45, most recently was city manager of Pickerington and brings to the big city a first-name relationship with the leaders of nearly every Columbus suburb. She has a quick wit, a quick mind and a quick temper for those who won?’t get the job done.
In short, she?’s needed.
The first few months of Coleman?’s second term have proved unexpectedly rocky. Headlines cropped up too frequently reporting waste ?— in spending for cell phones and city cars.
Firefighters, unable to fill civilian jobs, got creative and put the rank and file in the division laundry.
And a few directors were such train wrecks that Coleman, though a softie, bade them farewell.
When his chief of staff departed for another job, the mayor hired a former state senator, Michael Schwarzwalder, to replace him. This week, Coleman hired Bushman to keep tabs on departments and to troubleshoot.
''She?’ll be my eyes and ears out there,'' Schwarzwalder said yesterday. ''She?’ll make sure that the issues that bubble up in various departments are resolved.''
Goodbye, goofs. Hello, smooth government. They hope.
As for Bushman, she vows to hold hands, not knock heads.
''We need to make sure that where there are issues of concern that involve multiple

http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2004/04/02/20040402-B1-04.html

Builders favorite reporter

city departments, those departments are all working together,'' she said.
Her job, at first, will be to meet all the players. It takes weeks to figure out where all the doors are in City Hall. After that, she?’ll skeet-shoot at problems.
Her appointment and Schwarzwalder?’s signal that Coleman has taken a stronger grip on his administration. He has set up a chain of command to efficiently deal with problems and seize opportunities.
Bushman was, for months, rumored as the top pick for the job. She did a good job representing city concerns during battles with townships over annexation law, forged a cordial working relationship with Coleman and earned strong Democratic Party bona fides.
She will be paid $92,000 a year, money carved from other positions in Coleman?’s office that have gone unfilled during a four-year hiring slowdown.
Her appointment will surely raise eyebrows in the stopsprawl suburbs, where her reputation is one of pro-growth. But Bushman said she wants ''good, sustainable, planned growth.''
No doubt her early months will be tough slogging. But this is one woman unlikely to give up. She has survived 12 years in a political snake pit, amid personal tragedy.
About 10 years ago, her husband, a nonsmoker. ''He died in my arms six days later.''
Bushman was left with two sons, age 9 months and 2?½ years, and oversight of a village that had just become a city. Budget talks were painful. Her service director jokingly arrived in boxing gloves. The police chief sent her chocolates. (Psst, Joyce. Don?’t expect any Godiva from our guy.)
A co-worker gave her a telling 40 th birthday present: a hard hat. Lettering on the front reads, ''I?’ve survived damn near everything.''
If she can add Columbus to that list, we?’ll all be better off.
Barbara Carmen is a Dispatch Metro columnist. She can be reached at 614-461-8855 or by e-mail.
bcarmen@dispatch.com


http://www.dispatch.com/news-story.php?story=dispatch/2004/04/02/20040402-B1-04.html



Barbara Carmen also wrote a column last year about how unfair the moratorium was to the builders and that a moratorium was the wrong way to go for Pickerington. I now wonder who feed her that crap?

Bad Omen for Suburbs

From: Lisa Ross
Date: 04/02/04 11:01:42
To: bcarmen@dispatch.com
Subject: Joyce Bushman

Barbara,

I believe many people in the Pickerington vicinity do not like Joyce Bushman and are amazed and shocked that Coleman hired her! When the landslide election of a new Pickerington city government occurred in the fall, part of the reason that slow growth candidates were elected is that they did not like what the city administration was doing and that administration's direction was set by Mrs. Bushman.

When the Coleman administration hired her, to the people in this suburban community, it was a signal that he may be unwilling to work with all suburban counterparts as she has a reputation for not being a player unless her interests are served, period. I find it amazing that she is to be a prime communicator for this administration especially with the employees, as her reputation as a manger with her prior employees was not good in my opinion.

I hope your sentiments are correct for the sake of regional cooperation that is badly needed in our community, but from watching her for the past eight years, I think he may have made a poor decision.

Mrs. Bushman recently purchased an office building in Columbus for 1.2 million dollars. There is some concern about this purchase on the part of the public and whether she was able to make this purchase as a result of her connections with developers while she worked in Pickerington.

Go to this web site http://franklin.governmaxa.com/propertymax/rover30.asp and type in Bushman Joyce (no commas) in the parcel search area, you will see the sale and the fact that it was closed while she was still a city of Pickerington employee.

Here is a link to the Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance Web site

http://www.neighborhoodlink.com/org/pata

If you view the pages on the site and visit the discussion area of the site you will see a ling history of discontent with her administration.

Lisa Ross

Yup, I'm convinced!

I read that insulting article to my intelligence today. I called the Dispatch and did what I should have done long ago. I canceled my subscription. This commentary was the last straw! That paper has convinced me that in printing this ?“Ode to Joyce?”, they do not give a damn about my family, this community, or me.

By enough to act