We’ve been on the road for about 3-1/2 months now, and are running out of stuff to watch on our Dish TV. We have the digital recorder running pretty much all day and night, trying to vacuum up the few “gems” that we’ve missed, but there aren’t many.
Lately, we’ve been watching a lot of “Law and Order” re-runs. That series ran for twenty years, so there are maybe 1,000 hour-long episodes to see. Anyway, the plots are interesting and move along briskly, and the regular, and guest, cast members are all good actors and actresses, so an episode or two fills an otherwise boring evening in the coach.
One of the main Law and Order characters is Adam Schiff, played by Stephen Hill. He plays a savvy, no-nonsense District Attorney who runs the shop of legal eagles. Schiff has some young bucks working the cases for him who are idealists/true believers (in the law), while the D.A. himself has to concern himself (and his office) about costs and politics as well as doing the right thing.
As I watch Schiff (Hill), I am reminded of the best boss I ever had: Larry Parrish. Stephen Hill could be Larry’s brother, except that Mr. Parrish was a much more natty dresser. The thing that they both possessed, in spades, is wisdom.
I had been working for the County of Riverside for about twenty years when Larry Parrish was hired as its Chief Executive Officer. Earlier in my career, I had staffed the Board of Supervisors and worked in the Executive Office, but, in 1994, I was on assignment, managing the County Fairgrounds in Indio. I had been there approximately five years when I suffered a back injury while skiing, and, after the surgery, I needed to reduce my commute time (it was then 90 minutes each way!).
I had met Larry earlier that year, as he made the rounds to introduce himself to, and evaluate, the heads of all the County departments. I forget what we talked about in general, but he asked my opinion about a particular County manager who was doing a lot of economic development work in the Coachella Valley (where the fairgrounds was located) and I was straightforward in my response…the guy was out of his league. He thanked me for my honesty and he left.
Anyway, when my back went bad, I asked the Board of Supervisors if they could find a job for me back in Riverside (i.e. the county seat). The next thing I knew was Mr. Parrish calling me and inviting me to join his Executive Office Staff, as Deputy County Executive Officer.
I worked in that position for ten years; it was the best time of my life.
Riverside County, at that time, was the fastest-growing large county in the United States; now, it is the 10th largest county, in population and in GDP. I like to think that I had something to do with that.
Mr. Parrish headed up an organization of 12,000 employees divided up into scores of departments, with an annual budget of about $1 billion. Each department head (for example, the Sheriff) was responsible for executing that department’s budget, as approved by the Board of Supervisors. The day-to-day operation of each department was directed by an elected or appointed department head, but that officer needed to obtain Board approval for major budgetary or policy changes.
The Board had their public meeting every Tuesday. There were five Board members, and Mr. Parrish sat up at the dais with them, next to the Chairman. Anything that came to the Board, for their consideration, had to have already been processed through the Executive Office, and each item coming before the Board had to be signed-off by one of Mr. Parrish’s management staff. So, the CEO knew what the issues were, why a recommendation (For or Against) had been made by Executive Office staff, and was ready to provide answers if any of the Board members had a question. Typically, Parrish’s brain trust was in the front row of the Board meeting room, and he might call on one of us (or, a Board member might do the same) to flesh out some issue.
99.9%
That’s probably the Executive Office’s record on recommendations that we made to the Board of Supervisors while I worked there. (I can’t remember any item that I sent to the Board where they rejected my recommendation, but…I’m old. What do I know!)
My role as Deputy CEO was to lead a small group of analysts who made policy recommendations to the Board relating to the following County departments: Transportation; Planning; Building and Safety; Airports; Parks; Flood Control; Waste Management; and, 128 special taxing districts scattered throughout the County. My staff also had to manage staff at about a dozen of those special districts, which involved landscaping, parks, street lighting, road building, and community centers.
I was also the County’s lead player on Development Impact Fees. Actually, I had helped start the ball rolling on this program some twenty years earlier when I was in the Planning Department and, later, working with the Board of Supervisors. The DIF program was in full swing when I returned to the Executive Office, but it was in need of a major overhaul. This we accomplished, working cooperatively with the Building Industry Association. Because of this program, the county’s infrastructure was allowed to keep pace with the rapid growth in the County and spur economic development.
Larry Parrish was a great Boss. He told you what your job was, and then got out of the way, allowing each manager to use his/her brain, experience, and people skills. And, he had your back with the Board of Supervisors, with whom he had a very special rapport.
Mr. Parrish was an experienced public sector manager. After a long career in the Probation Department (in Santa Barbara County), he was appointed Chief Executive Officer there. Later, he became CEO of Orange County, one of the most prosperous counties in America. Larry was probably about 25 years into his public sector career when he came to Riverside County, and he was CEO there for about 15 years before retiring.
Needless to say, running a major county government in the United States is a significant task, and a very political one. Larry Parrish was never fired by any Board that he worked for; that tells you something right there.
Unlike the rank-and-file employees working in county government, who have certain civil service protections (due process, etc.), the top brass in County government (i.e. the CEO, his staff, and the various un-elected Department heads) “serve at the pleasure” of the elected Board of Supervisors. What this means is that each of those high-ranking employees can be fired whenever the Board desires, for whatever reason. I’ve seen a few management guys sent packing, usually because they’ve pissed off the Board or got caught doing something unethical or illegal. It’s rare, but it happens, much like it does in private sector organizations.
(I worked “at the pleasure” of the Board of Supervisors, in one capacity or another, for the last 22 of my 30 years with the County of Riverside. The elected Board changed a number of times during that period; lots of different personalities and agendas. I just went about my duties and didn’t think about the possibility that I could be unemployed the next day.)
Working at the top of a public sector pyramid is “political”, for sure, but our role, in the Executive Office, was not to be political; that was the job of the elected officials. Our job was to give the Board members our best judgment (whether financial, logistical, strategic, tactical) on departmental policy issues coming before them…and let them apply the political factor.
Larry Parrish had so much experience in this stuff that he was almost a fatherly figure to the five Board members; in fact, they joked that he was a “sixth Board member”.
Anyone, with any qualifications, can be elected to the Board of Supervisors…as long as they get enough votes. But, when they get seated on the Board, it soon becomes evident to most of them (typically, the one’s who haven’t served on a City Council or such) that they are in way over their heads, at least for the first couple of years.
Mr. Parrish, and the Executive Office, provided useful, practical knowledge, and institutional memory to the elected rookies. Some of them, in their campaign, had promised to change everything, root out waste, cut taxes, etc….the typical campaign rhetoric. But, when they got elected, they quickly realized that the scope of the task is monumental, and many things are not really under their control. Frustration sets in, and they lash out. Luckily for them, they had Larry Parrish (and staff) there to hand-hold them, show them how things work, and inform them what’s been tried and what’s worked (and, what hasn’t). And, thus, try to steer them in productive directions, so that their policy objectives might be achieved in a smooth and cost-effective manner.
Most citizens haven’t dealt with politicians up-close-and-personal. They are typically smart people with large egos. It takes a guy with a lot of wisdom to guide such people…it’s like herding cats. Any five politicians have five different personalities, dispositions, and agendas, and they each typically like to claim credit for successes. There is a certain amount of jostling, even within a Board that generally gets along. Over the years, under Larry Parrish, there was a pretty strong detente, despite substantial policy differences between individual Board members. Each got his chance to preen in public or shoot his mouth off, but, in the end, the Board moved the ball in a positive direction. A lot of credit has to go to the wisdom of Mr. Parrish.
We had a great crew in the Executive Office. Both of the other two top managers in the office were old friends of mine. Ken Mohr had been in the Executive Office in my earlier tour, and Tony Carstens had worked with me in the Planning Department when I first came to work in Riverside. The three of us, plus Larry, would often go out to lunch together and shoot the bull. I think that lunch was the major meal of the day for Larry, who put in long hours and then had to drive 90 miles to his home in Palm Springs. So, he had a good appetite, and we sampled many eateries around the Riverside area. I gained about maybe fifteen pounds during those years.
At these lunches, Larry would often give the three of us insights into his closed-door dealings with Board members…some of the political stuff that we didn’t have to deal with, but was nice to know.
Every Tuesday, after the Board of Supervisors meeting, Larry would conduct a staff meeting to go over the day’s events, comment on Board members’ comments, their gratuitous speeches and votes, and make sure every loose end was assigned to be chased-down before the following Tuesday.
In the midst of this monologue, Larry would entertain us with his great sense of humor, lampooning department heads, citizen gadflys, and Board members. It would have appeared to an outsider as disrespectful, I suppose, but it helped to cut the tension and bring all of the staff together as a team “in the know”. Everyone in the office, including secretarial staff, attended those Tuesday meetings. We loved them.
(I was just thinking about something like this in my earlier life. I was once an X-ray technician, and I used to have to work in surgery occasionally. Most people would think that in such a serious, sterile, precision-based activity there would be absolute silence except for the surgeon saying, “Pass the scalpel”. No, that was not my experience. Probably as a way of cutting the tension, many of the operating rooms featured music, sometimes rock ‘n roll, and the doctors and nurses did their duties while chatting and making small talk. It actually made coming to work a pleasurable experience, which should always be a management goal.)
I retired in 2003, and Larry Parrish followed me out the door a couple of years later. The County of Riverside is now on their third CEO in the past 14 years since he retired.
Larry Parrish left some big shoes to fill.