Editorial: Naples Building Department

A front-page story Sunday chronicled fiscal policy so haphazard and improvised that bonuses were handed out at will and even signed by the mayor via a machine. And when a bonus 10 times bigger than intended was awarded, for $86,000-plus, it was cashed right away -- and the employee whose annual salary was far less than that sum was absolved for giving it back when asked.

The bonuses were paid by former city managers Richard Woodruff and, more recently, Kevin Rambosk as they pleased, records show. No reasons or limits are set into law. The $86,000 whopper to William Overstreet did not even include a reason in writing from Rambosk.

City officials could dip into unpaid salaries -- from jobs that went unfilled for a while, for example -- to cover the bonuses, public records show. That policy is an invitation for trouble. Who else got this free-flowing public money and why?

The policy isn't the only conflict of management fundamentals. Overstreet and the former city managers compromised the design and permitting for various city projects on which Overstreet served as architect and the building department he led handled the inspections.

City Council really believed, as Mayor Bonnie MacKenzie says, that this justified some savings by virtue of Overstreet's moonlighting? That's government Mayberry-style.

Overstreet and a subordinate, Alfred Hogrefe, are requesting a name-clearing hearing later this week, after initially resigning for taking gifts and cutting corners on personal and other construction according to a probe ordered by the new city manager, Bob Lee.

Their lawyers and city officials are wrangling over whether that hearing should be open to the public.

What should be automatic in favor of the public is even more important now that we see the kinds of public stewardship in question. Further, the state attorney ought not wait for an invitation or evidence served up on a platter to get involved on a far-ranging criminal level.