When people talk about the “good old boy” network in Toledo government, it is not hyperbole.

The good old boy network, now headed by a woman — Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson — simply means this: jobs for our friends and allies.

It’s OK if the city gets stuff done, but that is an ancillary benefit.

The primary task of city government — to the network — is jobs for those who have power, and their relatives: To the victor goes the spoils.

The “spoils” are jobs — cushy and well-paying jobs. You get $60,000 to $90,000 a year because you backed the right horse in the last election.

This spoils system has always been a part of city politics in America, from Boston to L.A.

But the question of competence has not always been so totally irrelevant: Can the persons filling these jobs do them well and serve the public?

Forget about it.

Just show up.

The political class in this city has grown so used to looking at city government as a honey pot that it seldom pauses to ask the competence and performance question.

In her first personnel moves, Mayor Hicks-Hudson has shown zero capacity for reform and zero interest in professionalizing city government, which we need desperately.

Instead, it is business as usual — the machine gets its folk and the mayor gets a retinue.

● Mark Sobczak will be Toledo’s new chief of staff, replacing Bob Reinbolt.

Mr. Sobczak seems like a good guy, and the mayor has a right to have people she likes and trusts close to her. Some at least. But I don’t know what qualified Mr. Sobczak to be the city’s human resources commissioner. (Mike Collins appointed him.) Except that he was a vice president of Teamsters Local 20. And I surely do not know what qualifies him to be the de facto city manager, except that he has been in Government Center for two calamitous years, the last several months of which have been aimless and bumbling.

The chief of staff runs the city. It should be a person who has run a city.

There should be a national search for the person appointed to this job.

Our city will not start getting grants it has missed out on, or set up one-stop shopping for economic development, or improve management on ANY front, so long as the big jobs in city government are handed out on the basis of politics, loyalty, or familiarity.

● Chris Zervos, the city’s commissioner of building inspection, and Stephen Leggett, a “mayor’s assistant II” working as the manager of the city’s beautification and blight reduction team, were both fired.

But not based on competence. Based on patronage.

We were told they were both “at will,” employees, and the mayor was exercising her will. To me that sounds medieval, not professional.

I don’t know if Mr. Zervos was doing a good job or not. I know that our late Mayor Jack Ford thought that the city was not nearly as aggressive as it should be with building inspections. But I don’t know that Mr. Zervos had the resources or manpower he needed. Or that his successor will. Or that anyone in city government cares. We were not told that we need better or more forceful building inspection. Or that more inspectors are being hired. Nothing like that.

And Mr. Leggett, who WAS a political appointee two years ago, became much more than that. I do know a bit about him. I know he was working hard at his job, making real progress, and bringing professionalism as well as dedication to it. He is a serious student of public administration, and he was one of the few in city government making a difference.

We were also told these two firings were budget-saving moves. But that’s malarkey. Most hired by the mayor are getting very handsome salaries. Most moved to new jobs are getting raises.

Why does the mayor, one reader asks, need a scheduler, a chief of staff, AND a personal assistant? Why does the city need a chief operating officer and a chief of staff? Why is Bob Reinbolt STILL not leaving but staying on as a part-time public safety director? Not because he is needed in that job or knows so much about police and fire, or did such a great job diffusing problems between the fire chief and the firefighters’ union. (To the contrary.) It is because, according to Toledo tradition, the insiders are entitled. They exist to protect their own privilege. Bob Reinbolt is the ultimate insider and apparently his sinecure is existential.

Again, this is all medieval. And the way “it has always been”: The mayor is not a leader but a king, or queen; not a public servant but a potentate. The chief of staff is not a manager but a fixer who lobbies for private interests when he is out of office.

What is wrong with this picture?

Absolutely everything.

Real budgetary concerns would mean a total review of all the structure and functions of city government, of the operational flow charts, of all salaries and responsibilities. It would mean no double, or triple, dippers and no revolving door. The mayor knows this and so does Mr. Reinbolt, and so does every member of the City Council.

We have an antiquated, expensive, and lethargic city government in which political appointees have been layered over the professionals and often displaced or replaced them. It doesn’t work very well, and we can no longer afford it.

We have a spoils system. And it is no way to run a city — or anything else.

The cities in Ohio and the rust belt that are progressing — helping the private sector and not getting in its way — are professionalizing city government. Right now that even includes Detroit.

But not us.

The only person who can initiate a break-up and breakthrough of our seedy inner ring — the good old boy network — is the mayor. Otherwise she is a stander-by in her own administration; a placeholder; a regent for the machine; a lame duck from Day One. I believe Paula Hicks-Hudson is more and better than that.

At some point, this preference for the good old boys and the bad old ways — politics over management and hacks over professionals — will totally cripple the city. At some point, we must stop calling it quaint and instead call it stupid and corrupt.

Keith C. Burris is a columnist for The Blade. Contact him at: kburris@theblade.com or 419-724-6266.

First Published January 10, 2016, 5:00 a.m.