How Bell Hit Bottom case study

How could something like this happen? I think Issues such as this are happening all of the time; a problem presents Itself and someone is charged with finding a quick solution. The saying, “haste makes waste” didn’t come about by accident. The town of Bell had gotten to the point where “they needed someone fast”. This Is a dangerous place to be.

Despite the fact that Robert Orzo had a sketchy past, he came cheap.

The council that was charged with hilling a city leader had likely become so dragged down with dealing with one of the resorts municipalities In California that they had lost sight of the Importance of finding a leader and Instead, simply looked to fill the vacancy. The fact that the most attractive part of hiring Orzo was that he was willing to work for the least amount money. Speaks volumes about the state of mind that the city council had reached. Also, that the council didn’t do due-diligence on Orzo meant that they had truly lost their way. .

Could this be avoided by transparency? I don’t think that transparency would have made a difference. The city council had cost interest in transparency when hiring Orzo. I don’t see where transparency along the way would have made any difference. The council set the tone and set their expectations by taking the cheapest route and by not spending time researching Razz’s past. In my opinion, they had predetermined their fate.

3. Where did the system fail? I think the system failed on several levels. Primarily, the council gave-up on their town.

They had become emotionally and socially exhausted by the financial state of the town and apparently had lost support from their county and state. I believe they let abandoned by the “system” and were overwhelmed by the number of illegal. The support of voters had been reduced to a ridiculous number and I believe that the dwindling concern for elected officials and city-run affairs coalesced into one big detached council.

4. How can new administration develop trust with citizens of Bell? The first thing that new administration will have to realize is that trust is not going to be easy to earn.

I’m concerned that the interim administrator appointed was one who had worked with Orzo; I think this Is a mistake. I believe that above all, the city nuncio Is going to need some major over-hauling. The people of Bell seem to be fired-up and willing to move forward, but If the city council that hired Orzo Is still In place, that’s going to need some attention. New checks-and-balances need to be put In place along with transparency, goals and visions.

The new administrator would do well to be visible and active In the community and regular town hall meetings would help to get the citizens Involved. 5. What did you learn from this case?

I learned that when a city determines collectively that It Is a silo, that attitude can dead down a path of true destruction. The story doesn’t mention whether or not the city council sought insight from the county or from the state, but something clearly had happened that drove them to the point of not caring about anything but hiring women at an earlier time. They had been failed on a much larger level than Just city finances. I think it would be wise to do a root-cause analysis on this case to see when and where the problems really began.

This might shed more light on how to keep similar problems from happening in the future.