The Victimhood Olympics have begun at the Marble Palace with the mayor’s Chief of Staff Jasmine Chavous Sims filing a complaint accusing Garnett Johnson of creating a “hostile work environment.”
Johnson’s enemies, and yes, he does have still have them, began salivating when they learned that Sims filed a complaint, made accusations she didn’t have to prove and watched the mayor try to explain himself to the news media without violating Sims’ privacy regarding her employment, which is one of the many perks she gets as a city worker.
Sobbing, Sims cried to the Human Resources Department that Johnson caused her “significant stress and confusion” when he told her not to bother coming in to work for a day after she screwed up the appointment calendar.
Did this woman forget to read her job description? Does she realize that she works for a politician?
The role of the mayor’s chief of staff is like trying to herd cats in a hurricane inside of a pressure cooker. Sometimes the hurricane is real.
While the current mayor’s job is largely ceremonial in the day-to-day running of the city, he still has reams of paperwork in front of him on almost a daily basis that must processed or the gears of government cease to rotate. Everything from liquor licenses to open meeting affidavits require the mayor’s John Hancock.
Then there is the calendar.
Everyone, and I do mean everyone, wants a sliver of the mayor’s time. The appointment calendar has to be managed like Miranda Priestley’s Big Book from “The Devil Wears Prada.”
Everything on that appointment calendar has to be timed to the degree that miscommunication is not acceptable.
I would submit that being the mayor is a more difficult job than that of a sitting congressman. People like Rick Allen can hide away in Washington and sneak into their district occasionally and pop up on TV from time to time to prove they are still alive. They only have to come out and press the flesh during election/fundraising season.
Meanwhile, the mayor of Augusta does not get the weekends off.
A typical day might include a prayer breakfast, the first batch of papers to sign, a luncheon, second ream of paper signing, an economic announcement made by the Chamber of Commerce followed by an awards ceremony sponsored by the mayor’s office. Not only does the chief of staff (CoS) have to make sure the mayor is where he is supposed to be on time with a speech in his pocket, but the CoS is responsible for the awards ceremony catering, flowers, sound system, procuring whatever plaques are needed with the correct names etched in, invitations and press releases, plus, they need to know the name of every single person on the guest list so they can make proper introductions when they are not sneaking to the corner to make sure the mayor’s airplane reservation for a 7 a.m. flight the next morning is in Delta’s system.
All of this needs to happen with the precision of a Swiss watch, and I have seen some of the best in the role of CoS in action. Karyn Nixon was former Mayor Deke Copenhaver’s chief for the better part of a decade, and she was so good that she could create the mayor’s signature better than he could.
Copenhaver, who takes the gold medal for being the most genial and laid-back mayor in Augusta’s history, would readily admit that he would have consistently been late with his shoes untied and his shirttail sticking out if it weren’t for Karyn. In all of those years, I never saw her flustered, not even a hair would be out of place as she juggled oranges while playing accordion.
However, even Karyn knew there was no way she could keep up such a pace forever, and when Deke was getting close to retirement from the city, I asked Karyn if she was going to miss her job and her smiling reply was, “There’s a reason God gave us term limits.”
Hardie Davis Jr.’s diva-like behavior is well documented through his credit card statements, and it seems he found a unique way to keep his assistants happy, and he had an army of them.
Davis made sure there was plenty of ink in his autopen and treated his assistants to expensive “work” lunches, flights around the country and the world with stays in luxury hotels, courtesy of the taxpayers.
Remember when the so-called Queen of Nice Ellen DeGeneres was outed for being “mean” and had her long-running gab-fest talk show unceremoniously canceled? Well, some people thought they were about to pull the curtain down on the mayor they lovingly call a dictator for convincing the public to give him a vote on the commission. The only problem is that Johnson is not a diva by any stretch, but he never signed up to be the “King of Nice” either.
If anything, I think that Johnson’s response to one too many screw-ups, as Sims alleged, stating this wasn’t the first time Johnson showed displeasure with her, was a bit passive-aggressive, if anything.
Johnson is a far cry from a prima donna, and instead of dressing Sims down and embarrassing her in front of the staff, he sent the salaried employee home and gave her the silent treatment.
My old boss, radio legend Matt Stovall, used to throw things at me and curse until his face turned red, then turn around, in the same breath and portray the nicest guy you ever heard on the radio. I guess some people prefer that kind of a boss.
But wait, there’s more!
So, what did Sims think was going to happen when she ran weepy-eyed to Human Resources? Did she think they were going to reprimand the mayor? Force him to take a seminar on how to compassionately deal with victimhood-prone, childish behavior from employees?
The mayor is an elected official and is not subject to being issued demerits by HR.
What Sims did do was hasten her expiration date in the mayor’s office. The trust that has to exist between a politician and his or her closest advisor has been, if not irretrievably broken, damaged mightily.
Sims may have also presented Johnson with the final sixth vote needed either to fire or force the resignation of the last standing member of the “Old Guard,” the group that laughed when Davis was inaugurated and counted how many mayors they had outlasted.
Out of the group that used to include Procurement Director Geri Sams and Finance Director Donna Williams, only Human Resources Department Director Anita Rookard is left and the writing for her has been on the wall so long, it was beginning to grow mold.
The same office that withheld the egregious offenses by former Parks and Rec. Director Maurice McDowell from the commission suddenly began leaking like a 10-year-old garden hose the moment Sims signed her complaint.
Did anyone notice that virtually everyone in the media, even the local radio talk host, got tipped off at the same time so that it would lead the TV broadcasts and newspaper headlines the same day?
The coincidences do not stop there. Also-ran candidate Stephen Kendrick announced, on the same day, that he was running to unseat Johnson. Everyone has long been aware that the deputy tax commissioner is itching for a rematch, yet he somehow decided this was the perfect moment to make everything official.
In all these years, Kendrick has learned to lock the office safe at night, but he has never grasped the fact that, in politics, optics are everything. Rather than postpone his podcast appearance for a few days, he went ahead with it so that he could share top-billing and present the perfect smile as a contrast to the crotchety old mayor who was about to be cancelled for being “mean.”
Kendrick turned on the microphones and lit his cigar, ready to ride public relations victory laps around his wounded opponent. Only, the cigar blew up in his face and his horse took off without him, making him look like the foiled cartoon villain once again.
Dag ‘nabbit, ya sorry bunch a hogswoggling pony soldiers!
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter, Editorial Page Editor and weekly columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
