Sheffield Lake does not suffer from a shortage of good people. It suffers from a shortage of systems that force good outcomes even when bad incentives stroll into office wearing a smile. That is why the city needs a real Human Resources department—and why it must be structured as a guardrail, not as another decoration hanging from the Mayor’s door.

A city is not a private club. It is not a family business. It is not a campaign headquarters extended into municipal payroll. When a Mayor holds the hiring lever alone, the temptation is as old as politics itself: hire friends, hire loyalists, hire people who nod before you finish speaking. And once you do that, you do not have city employees. You have personal employees—a political entourage paid by taxpayers. Their loyalty drifts upward to one man, instead of outward to the residents who fund their salaries. That is how corruption begins: not with the dramatic headline, but with the quiet formation of a court.

A court creates a dangerous equation. If your job depends on loyalty to the Mayor, then truth becomes optional. Warnings get softened. Bad ideas are dressed up as good ones. Reports become propaganda. Contracts go unchallenged. Waste is excused. And the few employees who still remember their oath to the public keep their heads down, because the price of honesty is exile. Power that hires only its admirers eventually believes it is infallible. That is not leadership; it is the administrative version of a mirror addiction.

Ethically, a city that values clean government must break up the power to hire. Not because the Mayor is a villain by definition, but because human nature is. A mature system assumes that the holders of power are fallible—and designs around that fallibility. The Founders did not split powers because they hated presidents. They split powers because they understood men.

So here is the rational correction: Sheffield Lake needs a full-time HR Manager, hired by City Council, not the Mayor. The HR Manager would be a professional administrator and the Mayor’s or City Manager’s assistant in day-to-day operations. But when it comes to personnel selection, the HR Manager must be independent of the Mayor’s political orbit.

What does that independence buy?

It buys a city that hires for competence instead of loyalty.

An HR Manager would:

• write detailed and abbreviated job descriptions for every city position,

• advertise openings consistently and widely,

• perform real background checks,

• verify education and experience,

• maintain personnel files and disciplinary records,

• administer benefits and retirement programs,

• pre-interview and screen applicants so only qualified candidates reach the executive’s desk.

Then the Mayor (or City Manager) reviews from a certified pool and recommends a top three. HR must concur that these are truly the best three. Council selects from that list.

That hiring pipeline is not bureaucratic overkill. It is the simplest antidote to patronage:

1. Professional screening keeps the weak, the unqualified, and the politically convenient out.

2. Executive judgment ensures the Mayor still leads the direction of the administration.

3. Legislative confirmation keeps the process anchored to the public interest, not executive whim.

Notice what this does not do: it does not turn Council into a hiring committee for every job. It does not strip the Mayor of administration. It does not make City Hall ungovernable. It simply removes the Mayor’s ability to populate the city with a personal fan club.

That is not a diminution of executive power. That is a purification of executive power. A Mayor with real authority should want to lead professionals, not dependents. He should want employees who tell him what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear. He should want a city that functions because it is staffed by qualified adults, not because he is constantly propping up loyal amateurs.

If Sheffield Lake wants to reduce corruption, it should stop pretending corruption is always a dramatic crime. More often, it is the byproduct of a structure that rewards loyalty over merit. A strong HR system breaks that pattern. It makes the city harder to capture. Harder to manipulate. Harder to run as a personal kingdom.

You do not protect a community by trusting people more.
You protect a community by designing institutions that do not require blind trust to work.

That is what an HR Manager—independent, full-time, professional, and charter-protected—would give Sheffield Lake: a city staffed for the residents, not for the ruler.