Let's spend $54,000 to find out why we spent it

Should Newark City Deciders hire a city planner? That is the latest among quandaries they face.

This quandary points to the need - not for a planner but for a professional city manager. Thus could Newark replace a group of citizen-politicians thrust into municipal management responsibilities whose qualifications for their jobs consist entirely of their ability to draw votes.

Since Mayor Diebold has assumed the position of first-chair guitarist in the City Hall Ensemble, there have been discussions of reorganization among chiefs and Indians, first believed to be a cost-cutting measure, but later deemed to be the opposite.

Into the mix of considerations for reorganization has been entered a perceived need for a "planner," though what that person is expected to do and for whom is a massive gray area. Only if one carefully reads the latest Advocate report - clear to the last two paragraphs (instead of the first two paragraphs as in Journalism 101) - he'll learn that the mayor and his minions want to spend $54,000 to contract out these undefined duties performed for unspecified people because this way they will "determine exactly what we want that person to do."

There is no more definitive plea for a professional city manager than that.