Let’s call a spade a spade here, folks.

The city council is talking about moving City Manager Paul Sparks into a (sort of) new

job not because they value his economic-development expertise. That’s not to say they don’t value it, but why make him port authority director, while taking away his city manager duties, if he’s already doing both jobs?

Because the pork company will need a full-time port authority director to handle all the preparations for the plant, right? Hmmm. But what if the city is not chosen as the site for the plant?

The city council and mayor don’t want to talk about this yet because they aren’t ready to. They were quietly going about the business of altering the city’s rules to allow for a separate port authority director apart from the city manager. As it stands now, the city manager is the sole port authority employee.

Then Tom Leland went and placed an ad in the paper and blew the lid off the whole thing.

The city, Leland says, is planning to move Sparks into the port-authority job and find a new city manager to replace him. Nobody in the city has denied it.

This approach has the benefits of:

&045; Quietly taking care of what many people in Albert Lea perceive as a problem: An entrenched city manager who they claim doesn’t treat everyone equally. Many candidates who ran for city office in 2002 will tell you the number-one question they heard when door-knocking was &uot;What are you going to do about Paul Sparks?&uot; Yet it was and still is taboo for these candidates and officials to talk about that in public or &uot;on the record&uot; to the media.

And …

&045; Doing it in a way that pacifies Sparks. He has put in a quarter-century of toil for this city, and he’s not likely to go quietly if the council tries to dismiss him outright. He’s only a few years from possible retirement. And the city, aside from wanting a change, has no grounds on which to fire him. Some say wanting a change is enough grounds; others claim that’s just inviting a lawsuit.

That’s what’s going on here. The council, acting on what appears to be great demand from the people who elected them, are trying to find a way to limit Sparks’ role and get somebody new at the top of city hall’s food chain.

This whole episode finally brings into public view a controversy that’s been raging for years. The question that is constantly discussed in private has been: Is Sparks good or bad for Albert Lea?

The city manager has his defenders, who remind us that Sparks is as knowledgeable as they come. They’ll tell you that those who oppose him probably do so because they have a bone to pick about a development project that went sour; a problem resulting from a city inspection of their business; or because they just want a scapegoat.

The other side says Sparks plays favorites, shoots down ideas too quickly, controls the city council and has just plain been here too long. They say there are developers in the state who keep their distance from any project that has to go through Sparks.

Is this a question vital to Albert Lea’s future? I honestly don’t know. Many of the people who work with him swear Sparks is the right man for the job. Others in the community disagree &045; vehemently. Who to believe?

I don’t have all the answers, nor all the facts. Dealing with Sparks as a newspaper man, I don’t see the same side of him that others do, so I can’t say for sure how valid the criticism is. But the fact that so many people see this situation as a problem means something. It has to be addressed at some point.

Leland and others, for their part, don’t want to see Sparks leave the manager job only to take up another influential position as port authority head, where he would have influence over the city’s economic development efforts. The objection makes sense. If he’s not wanted as city manager, it doesn’t appear wise to give him another equally important job. But on the other hand, if the council doesn’t think it can make a change without appeasing Sparks, what choice do they have?

The council says they’re going to focus on the big pork company for now, so we won’t be dealing with this right away. But it’s out in the open now, and it appears those Sparks opponents could finally &045; maybe, sort of &045; get their way.

Dylan Belden is the Tribune’s managing editor. His column appears Sundays. E-mail him at dylan.belden@albertleatribune.com.