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The Real Tom Knox
By Robert Huber
Walt D’Alessio, chairman of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation in ’92 (a position he still holds) and a real estate banker, was in meetings Knox convened to come up with ways to make the city run efficiently, and he found Knox overly impatient to get things done, to say the least. “Making government more efficient requires a real understanding of how government works,” D’Alessio points out diplomatically, then cites the basic lesson in civics that Knox didn’t seem to grasp: There are certain checks and balances in place to make it inefficient, relative to business; that’s the point of the three branches of government — to avoid too much power in one person’s hands. Knox has heard this sort of thing before, how he was a cowboy operating as he saw fit, but still doesn’t back off: “A child suffering because he can’t get admitted to a rehab center, can’t get detox, a mother waiting six months before she can get any help — does she think I’m operating too quickly? People think you’re operating too quickly if they want to keep the status quo.”
But does his style work? One Rendell aide who worked closely with him calls Knox “an archetypical entrepreneurial CEO. He is in complete control — whatever he says, goes. It’s the ultimate monarchy approach to CEO status. And anything that required him to work with other people, or to get buy-in from other stakeholders or other constituencies, he was essentially incapable of doing.”
Buy-in is crucial, of course, when departments are being reorganized, or contracts with unions or health-care providers renegotiated, or leases broken. Or when — more Civics 101 here — you’re running a big city.
There were a few Knox-created messes to clean up, back in ’92. The Daily News reported that the city was buying the SmithKline building and moving 2,000 city workers there. Not true — that building was one of 25 under consideration. A Rendell aide called the paper, but couldn’t find out who the source for the story was. So a meeting of all the deputy mayors and the finance director was called, with one question asked: “Where the hell did this story come from?”
“I told them,” Knox said.
He was admonished for talking to the Daily News, and for jumping the gun on a decision that hadn’t been made yet.
“But it’s such a great opportunity,” Knox gushed. “I know we’re going to end up there.”
It didn’t happen. And it’s just the sort of process-be-damned mentality that makes Knox’s claim that he was principally responsible for making the city solvent in 18 months laughable to many in the Rendell administration. It’s an attitude Knox sported in the government office he decorated like a baron, with a finely turned cherry desk and handsome armchairs and fine oils on the walls, where he’d lean back and chat up Vederman on the great work he was doing. These days, Knox cites a 1995 Columbia University report on reinventing government that names some of the initiatives he was involved in as proof of his accomplishments. The report doesn’t mention him (or anyone except Rendell), though Knox says it should be obvious just whom Columbia was hailing, since he was head of the Office of Management and Productivity. “That’s why I get all the credit from Rendell,” Knox says. “Ask him if I did all this shit, and he’ll tell you yeah. The reason I don’t get any flak from reporters after I do my commercials is because they called him, the Governor, and asked him, and he said yeah.” Rendell does give Knox credit for helping to balance the city’s books. But as far as being the lead guy in saving the city — no. It was a team effort, the Governor says: “Tom doesn’t deserve ‘all the credit.’”
But does his style work? One Rendell aide who worked closely with him calls Knox “an archetypical entrepreneurial CEO. He is in complete control — whatever he says, goes. It’s the ultimate monarchy approach to CEO status. And anything that required him to work with other people, or to get buy-in from other stakeholders or other constituencies, he was essentially incapable of doing.”
Buy-in is crucial, of course, when departments are being reorganized, or contracts with unions or health-care providers renegotiated, or leases broken. Or when — more Civics 101 here — you’re running a big city.
There were a few Knox-created messes to clean up, back in ’92. The Daily News reported that the city was buying the SmithKline building and moving 2,000 city workers there. Not true — that building was one of 25 under consideration. A Rendell aide called the paper, but couldn’t find out who the source for the story was. So a meeting of all the deputy mayors and the finance director was called, with one question asked: “Where the hell did this story come from?”
“I told them,” Knox said.
He was admonished for talking to the Daily News, and for jumping the gun on a decision that hadn’t been made yet.
“But it’s such a great opportunity,” Knox gushed. “I know we’re going to end up there.”
It didn’t happen. And it’s just the sort of process-be-damned mentality that makes Knox’s claim that he was principally responsible for making the city solvent in 18 months laughable to many in the Rendell administration. It’s an attitude Knox sported in the government office he decorated like a baron, with a finely turned cherry desk and handsome armchairs and fine oils on the walls, where he’d lean back and chat up Vederman on the great work he was doing. These days, Knox cites a 1995 Columbia University report on reinventing government that names some of the initiatives he was involved in as proof of his accomplishments. The report doesn’t mention him (or anyone except Rendell), though Knox says it should be obvious just whom Columbia was hailing, since he was head of the Office of Management and Productivity. “That’s why I get all the credit from Rendell,” Knox says. “Ask him if I did all this shit, and he’ll tell you yeah. The reason I don’t get any flak from reporters after I do my commercials is because they called him, the Governor, and asked him, and he said yeah.” Rendell does give Knox credit for helping to balance the city’s books. But as far as being the lead guy in saving the city — no. It was a team effort, the Governor says: “Tom doesn’t deserve ‘all the credit.’”
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