Conclusions and Recommendations:
The municipality is the creation of the law, and is confined to its boundaries. It is not a private entity, seeking its own benefit, but a public institution responsible for the welfare of its subjects. As such, it is subject to the principle of legality which states that an administrative agency shall perform only what the law authorizes it to perform. Breaching this elementary principle is tantamount to usurping the municipality's power as well as public's confidence. Therefore, one objective of the municipality's management is to maintain legality at all levels and in all functions. To do this, management should encourage functional conflict pertaining to this important issue.
Returning to our case, management (the mayor, the GM) should view the Veterinarian's initiative in a positive light, because he felt that the elementary principle of legality is being disregarded. The process conflict escalated to medium-level intensity as a result of the Engineer's hostile reply to the Veterinarian's challenging letter to the mayor, and thus became dysfunctional.
In an attempt to transform the dysfunctional conflict into a functional one, management should try to lower the conflict intensity, to at least "overt questioning...".
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