With personnel issues having become the focus of our local government offices, the Board of Aldermen/women voted Thursday to shift hiring, firing, and disciplinary actions to Mayor Erwin. Previous Mayor Mike Webb had given up these responsibilities years before and they’ve returned home to roost in the mayor’s office.
The board voted 4-0 to shift the personnel oversight back to the mayor because of the recent tidal wave of complaints about alleged racism issues, alleged workplace bullying, and alleged sexist remarks – the latter two not being discussed publicly. Of course I emphasize the word alleged because I’m not there and only rely on newspaper accounts (HERE from DNJ) and private telephone discussions.
While I am pleased that the Board and Mayor are seriously addressing the problems and concerns, I have to ask where is the HR director in all this? Plus I want to encourage the Mayor to get back to the basics of good personnel management which includes implementing a performance management system (performance appraisal?) – not the blow sunshine up your skirt kind, but the kind that will be truly beneficial to employees, the city, and taxpayers. The kind that will help employeees and supervisors recognize their strengths and weaknesses, how to improve, and ferret out poor performance (giving workers who aren’t meeting work standards a probationary window to improve without an outright dismissal, but hold them to improving).
Maybe the mayor should appoint a task force of citizens and supervisors to review the employee handbook to see that everything outlined in it is being met and to update it. This Battleship game is neither here nor there… it just makes me laugh.
Filed under: City Management, Editorials, Elected Officials, In the News
After reading the article in the DNJ, I am quite pleased to see “change” in the city government. Hopefully this will take care of the problems that has already happened and problems that may come up in the future. Congrats to the Mayor and Aldermen/women for taking a stand on these issues.
I think the mayor should have a say in the hiring/firing, but I do think it should be primarily in the lap of Mark Moshea. Sherry Green is right, that if the mayor (whoever is mayor at any given time) wants to fill up siy hall with their buddies, now they can. No finance degree? no problem! You can still head our finance department! No management experience? Who cares, your my buddy so we will put you in charge of HR!
Ok, it may not be that bad, but you see my point. I think the Administrator should have say over hiring and firing, but give the Mayor veto power. If Moshea wants to hire/fire an employee and Moshea is against it, let the board vote (if it happens often enough, we would get a good idea of how city hall really operates).
Well Michael if the City Administrator had been doing his job properly we would not have the lawsuits we currenty have & possibly more coming, in my opinion. I still cannot believe that employee documents have been purged from their files — how can one give a comment on an employee when asked if there is nothing in their file to back it up — good or bad? This still strikes me as a “destruction of government documents” as the city is our local government & I feel this is somewhat if not ILLEGAL, it surely is UNETHICAL. In fact some complaints never were put in the employee files, even after the summer of ‘06. This may become more apparent at a later date. I would suggest neither the City Adminstrator or the HR dept. head did their jobs properly. And I venture to say that the Mayor had enough info given him to force him to make the decision to make the resolution to take the power away from Mr. Moshea. It would be a good thing for the Mayor to share that info with the rest of the Board members — maybe then Sherry would understand that something had to be done. It’s not a secret that she thinks Mark is great, but given the appropriate info one would say one of two things needed to be done & Mark’s still employed by the City so I guess that’s the road taken for the time being. Nepotism will always be in politics — in our Nation, in our State government & in our local government. It pays to know who you are putting into office before you actually cast your ballot.
I personally don’t know Mark Moshea that well, but I’ve always said I think the City Adminitrator should be someone who is a resident of La Vergne.
That aside, I wasn’t trying to comment about the current regime we have. If you take all the people out, I believe the mayor shoudl have say on personel, with a mentality of “the buck stops here.” But I still think the city administrator should be the one with the official hire/fire power and the mayor with veto rights.
Michael, I agree in theory, but with the current situation there has been way too much swept under the rug & looking the other way. I also think with a “clean slate” that a good, experienced, “stick by the rules” city administrator would be the one to do the hiring, firing, and discipline, with input from the mayor when warranted. I just don’t think we have that person in that position presently. It’s sad that there are so many skeltons in La Vergne City Hall’s closets! There have reportedly been threats (from the higher ups) of loss of jobs, etc. if a city employee talks to certain people about what is going on in certain depts . Smacks of very illegal activity at the highest level. Folks are afraid to tell of the things that are being done or report the ones who are doing wrong for fear of losing their own jobs. That just ain’t right, folks. I hope there is a big change coming — I think the past couple of adminstrations have proven who on the Board is for the citizens and who is out for themselves. I want folks in these positions who really care about how my tax money is spent & to be accountable for it! Too many questions marks as to where the money is going now — I think!
cee dee,
all I can say is NO COMMENT! even tho I would love to say what I feel I can’t
I totally understand that those who have relatives working for the city don’t feel comfortable talking — the fear is real!
now if we can just get someone to weed out the bad cops. anyone had any issues with them? i have and am looking for other incidents. thanks.