Posted May 6, 2019, 8:52 p.m. by Admiral Joe P (Librarian / TECH Chairman) (Joe P)
Posted by Rear Admiral Daniel Lerner (Personnel Director, EGO) in Question regarding the requirements to serve as Fcomm or AFcomm
<snip>I’m generally in agreement with the original proposal to remove the fleet restrictions for FComms and AFComms.
However, I’m not on board right now with the additional proposal to create new restrictions on who can be FComm and AFComm (i.e. the six-month rule, or the fact that the CO or XO was removed from their position). My concerns are as follows:
- The impetus that led to the original proposal was the ongoing difficulty in finding qualified FComms and AFComms - to the extent that we need to remove mandatory restrictions that no long need to be mandatory (and keep in mind, nothing is stopping a potential President from using his or her own discretion about what criteria they want in an FComm - they may feel they want an FComm familiar with the ships in that specific fleet - it is just no longer a mandatory restriction). So I’m having difficulty thinking why this “returning member” issue has become such a signficiant problem that we need to outright ban all future Presidents from hiring FComms who have not been active for more than six months before their appointment - such that we create a new issue in finding qualified members. I would note that this term to members with less than six months activity level were put into assistant or second assistant positions. At least in the appointment I made a large factor was only one person even applied for the spot! And that person was extremely qualified and has already made improvements to my department. So why should I hurt my department by not being allowed to hire the only person available for that position?
There’s a lot here to unpack, so here’s my own list of bullet points.
Related to the above (maybe the same issue from a different viewpoint), why are we so worried about how a future President will use their discretion. The President is specifically elected to make these calls about who will be on their cabinet, to use their experience and discretion and plans for the term to make the right call. If they want to take a risk (I’m not sure how much of a risk it actually is) in picking someone who may be a more recent arrival such that the person may step down before the term is over, it is the President who has to take on the responsibility of finding a new FComm. That’s the President’s prerogative in how they make their cabinet decisions. Maybe the President will have Joe’s philosophy and rule out anyone who doesn’t have at least six months of activity. But not every potential President will share that concern and I remain unclear over why we are forcing that on future Presidents. I became an FComm approximately 2-3 months after I returned to STF (maybe 4 months), and the new President and I had a lengthy discussion about the reason I returned and why i could be be counted on - and it was that President’s call to make.
Even if the consensus is against me on the above points (and I hope it is not), where did six months comes from? It seems arbitrary, and it is a bit long in how things work in STF in my opinion. Even if have to have a set minimum active period (and I hope we leave it up to the individual Presidents), I would set three months - that is usually a good gauge to see if a person is sticking around in my opinion.
I think six is better. Longer is better than shorter because we want people who are capable of sticking around for ideally 8 months. The best indicator for if you’re capable of sticking around that long is if you’ve already managed to do that much without issues. Plus, if you’re frequently AWOL and your fleet staff isn’t paying close attention (e.g. they only look at the master roster at report time), it’s going to take at least 2 months for them to notice that you have a recurring activity problem.
Why are AFComms being included here? Okay, yes it can be disruptive when a new FComm has to be filled (although not nearly as disruptive as when we need a new CO). But an AFComm? So what if an FComm has to replace an AFComm mid-term - it is not an unusual occurrence, and nothing falls apart in the interim. In fact, I would say an assistant position is the best place to test how committed a person is before putting them in the cabinet position.
I just proposed this as a simple modification to Cale’s suggestion, and Cale wrote her change to include assistants. However, I would make the case that exactly because the AFComm may have to step in to be a cabinet member, we should know that they’re going to be at least capable of being around to do that if they have to. That said, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have 6 months be the rule for the FComm and 3 months for the AFComm, since the requirements are lower for the AFComm anyway (they aren’t required to be a CO, but the FComm is).
So for those reasons, I do not support adding this additional, mandated restrictions into the bylaw. We should leave this for the President’s discretion rather than fettering their discretion.
Daniel
I think failures in Presidential discretion have been rampant for the past decade, so unfettered discretion is overdue for a review itself.
– Joe
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