It will work. They'll stop fighting with each other for as long as it takes to destroy this pinhead.
I wonder which of the councilor’s relatives or friends this bloke is... Nice paycheck for five days work...
UPDATE FROM THE SHRINK!
This should make the citizens happy to spend their $37,000 on this. LOL!
October 2, 2007
Conflict resolution for council defended
By Robert Plain
Ashland Daily Tidings
After being lauded by MSNBC, interviewed by USAToday and bombarded with comments from residents, Ashland City Councilors — and their counselor — are saying “it’s not therapy.”
“It has nothing to do with therapy,” said Dr. Rick Kirschner, who is working with city councilors on how they can better work with one another.
“I’m not here to analyze why people are the way they are or work through childhood issues or relationship issues or make them better human beings,” he said. “Those are therapy outcomes. It’s about conflict resolution and leadership.”
An author and naturopath as well as a life coach and public speaker, Kirschner also teaches communication skills to people working together in professional environments. Although this is his first city council, he has worked with the Ashland School Board and several large companies and institutions, such as NASA, Heineken and Starbucks.
He has already made some preliminary assessments of the council.
“I don’t think the council has a functional process for dealing with the city’s business,” the Ashland resident said. “There is lot of misunderstanding among the members and I think that plays out in the way business of city gets done. They spend an unbelievable amount of time together. It’s astonishing what a great service they are giving to the community.”
He will meet with the entire council for the first time this weekend. He has already begun talking with individual councilors for a process that will take five months, an unknown amount of meetings and time, as well as $37,000 of the public’s money.
City Administrator Martha Bennett, who called it “communication skills training” said the money for the training is coming from the council’s budget. A press release on the city’s Web site said, “Under Ashland’s municipal code the contract with Dr. Kirschner is exempt from the competitive bidding process due to his unique set of skills, background and experience.”
This is the second time this council has spent money on such activities, according to Bennett. In January, they hired a company from Eugene for what she called a “team-building session” for $7,600 for a day and a half of sessions.
Councilor David Chapman, who swore at one of his colleagues at a recent council meeting, said he hopes the sessions with Kirschner will help the council communicate with each other more effectively.
“A lot of us are not very skilled at this,” he said.
In a prepared statement, Mayor John Morrison said, “I believe that once we complete this training, the Citizens of Ashland will benefit. Citizens will see stronger leadership, better teamwork and increased cooperation in conducting city business without compromising the individual councilor beliefs and political passions.”
Ashland Daily Tidings link
http://www.dailytidings.com/2007/1002/stories/1002_therapy.php