The New Orleans Recreation Development Commission tonight appointed interim director Vic Richard as its new chief executive after a special hearing where the four finalists were interviewed.
All but one member of the commission, Bobby Garron, who abstained, voted for Richard’s appointment. The commission hired a headhunter for $42,500 and took 93 applications but ultimately landed on Richard, who was appointed to the job by Mayor Mitch Landrieu in 2010.
For some reason, I watched this whole hearing on Cox TV last night. I suppose it was better than waiting for the inevitable 4th quarter Hornets collapse. Unfortunately I can't say that watching the meeting taught me anything I didn't already know or suspect about the candidates or the process.
I suspected, for example, that Wanda Durden and Charlene Braud were token plants and heard nothing to dissuade me from this. For a moment I considered the possibility that Braud was a serious candidate when she told the commission about the time she fired 105 people and replaced them with Americorps volunteers. That sounds like the sort of thing Mitch's "public-private partnership" is interested in seeing more of. But since it was also clear that Braud has been and will continue to be available to advise the Richard and the commissioners it didn't really matter whether she got the job.
Meanwhile, the consultant demonstrated at least some sense of humor by presenting us with ex-NFL star Reggie Williams as a so-called finalist. Williams, who at one point assured the commissioners, "I do know that I have phenomenal skills," exhibited a phenomenal ability to 1) flail his arms about and fidget in his chair while 2) responding with some variant of "I don't really know a whole lot about that" to something like 75% percent of the questions asked. Later, Williams stood up and touched his own toes; a phenomenal skill he said he owes to his experience in ballet.. which also contributed to his success in football. Williams returned many times to the topic of his pro football career.
The one occasion when Williams directly addressed a question put to him was also an error. Asked by the Mayor to describe "your biggest mistake" the other three candidates followed the standard job interview script by choosing instances of "mistakes" that were either someone else's fault, or better, evidence of their own over-charged ambition. Williams instead talked about a time he assented to something he knew was a stupid idea for the sake of political expediency. Also he pronounced the Mayor's name, "Land-row".
So I guess $42,500 can buy you some entertaining patsy competition for your hand-picked appointee if that's what you think you need. In this case, it hardly seems worth the bother.
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