Count Ray Nagin among those who promised to drag City Hall out of a dark age and make it part of the vanguard. Not only would he introduce new technology to City Hall, he said, but he would also bring to bear the business acumen he had honed as manager of the local cable company.
Neither introducing new technology nor bringing in practices from the business world had to be bad. But they have proved to be bad during Nagin's administration because he failed to make his new ideas compatible with the acceptable practices of government. I write "failed," but it's probably more accurate to say that Nagin never tried.
In fact, it appears that the mayor got the chain of command exactly wrong and that instead of making business work for the government, he oversaw an administration where government became the subordinate of business people -- business people who despite an unprecedented level of access and power failed to provide the services they promised.
Add to that Nagin's apparent belief that an executive doesn't have to be open about his plans, his communications or his whereabouts and it becomes obvious that his respect for the mechanisms of government are pretty much nonexistent.
I'm pretty sure we've made this point before somewhere.
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