Glass City Jungle

I do actually have access to the internet this time, in attendance so far is Joe McNamara, George Sarantou, Betty Shultz, Wilma Brown, Tom Waniewski, Steve Steel, Adam Martinez, Rob Ludeman and D. Michael Collins. Also in attendance is Gerald Dendinger, Clerk of Council and Julie Gibbons, Assistant Clerk of Council. Ignazio Messina from the Blade arrived a few moments ago. I’ve gone through and bolded some of the items covered to make it easier for those of you who want to skim this for key topics.

McNamara first thanked all of those in attendance for support when he was Council President and this was an opportunity to talk about the future since he was not going to seek the presidency in January. He then thanked some council staff and council members personally.

McNamara in his three years in Council, staffing numbers have gone down, they are at 9 now and several years go they were at 16, they did have one aide for each two council persons now that is not the case, there is also another possible retirement in addition to the one aide position that was not filled. McNamara also wants to discuss the functions of the staff positions. Phil Copeland just arrived as the topic of the duties of the Sergeant at Arms was touched on. It was expressed that they need security, but McNamara doesn’t think some duties like delivering packets should be done by the Sergeant at Arms.

The staff raises was not done legislatively, McNamara thinks if the raises are going to stay then they need to address that legislatively. There will also be discussion on reducing the number of the committees. Mike Craig just arrived. A brief overview of the Sunshine Laws in reference to caucusing for the Presidency issue was made clear.

Then Gerald Dendinger went over the material that was given to council members, after a roll call of members were present, a quorum was present. As they were going over the packet, Rob Ludeman asked as to the status of one of the council aides as to were they going to be eligible to retire, it was stated they could retire in August. A plan to use the current 5 aides between the 12 council members is the current plan barring any future discussion on staffing. Then the history as to how council ended up having 12 committees was briefly shared. At one time there were only 7 committees.

Wilma Brown felt that the constituent portion of the council aide position was critical, she did not want to return to the previous pool type plan in the past. Betty Shultz felt that no aide should have more than two council persons, she said that the council person who has three is on overload, there were times when she was not available to the other two.

George Sarantou wanted to know if the budget numbers reflected six aides or five, it was confirmed that was 5. He was asked if they were going to be on target budget wise, Dendinger stated yes, he expected 1 million four forty as the total line item. Sarantou said that Sobczak as Council president spoke to all of the council members individually and a majority decided to give the raises, he thinks the present financial renumeration of the council aides was fair and he does not think they should fill the open aide position, that his aide fills in when needed, he thinks it sends a horrible message to fill the position now, he knows his aide will chime in and help others if needed.

Tom Waniewski wanted to know about the increase in contractual services, Dendinger said that was the budgeted number, when they needed money for CareNet, the 3740 account typically is $10,000 that goes for the City Charter, and data processing is for the ERP system in 2010. Waniewski said it’s not the quantity it’s the quality when it comes to the aides, he felt it could be better managed. He said there needs to be better time management as to the aides job demands. Mike Craig said for the people who have three, it would be easier if those two aides had at large members since it does take more time for district council members, if you have district people – 2 per aide is probably all they can handle, it takes up a ton of time. Craig agrees the aides are justly compensated as it is now, it is a very tight budget, if they can get by with five for the foreseeable future that would be good. He doesn’t see any way they can go back to 6.

Rob Ludeman said if the one aide retires they should keep it at four, make sure their budget is as trim as possible. He thinks that who ever is elected president of council will have to look at this, the council president has more communication and scheduling issues. He said he has historical perspective on the aides, it started out with interns and he suggested if they can re-establish that relationship with the University of Toledo or another law school, they were paid through the University all that the City paid for was their health insurance, they were graduate students. He suggested if the retirement happens they look at that. He felt the current compensation for aides was fair, especially given the possible increase in workload.

There was some discussion as to the previous intern program, Julie Gibbons also pointed out that back then the University of Toledo did not require that students had to have health insurance, so that might be a factor. Sarantou felt with the possibility of the one retirement they should explore that, that they can not hire any full time staff with the current budget scenario. Steel said if they were there over a year then they were not interns they were graduate assistants. Waniewski said this does go beyond a class term. Gibbons said they have done that up until recently there was a problem with one person but they still have the ability to do that. Ludeman said the only negative was the short term time frame but they were top notch when it came to research. Steel said there were all kinds of issues related to the aides and management, what is the job description, what is the chain of command, what can be expected, when it’s two or three council members per aides, that’s a factor. Hiring and Firing issues, if there is a set of expectations, it’s going to be hard to find a single individual who has all of those skill sets coming in and there should be some training in place. He thinks there needs to be a job description, evaluation process and training, that it has to be a package. Lindsay Webb arrived..

McNamara said the chain of command issue is a reoccurring problem. He said at the staff meeting an evaluation is something that was suggested, right now there are essentially 12 bosses for 9 people. He thinks $45,000 for an office job in Toledo is very generous, for that much the skill set could be higher. If a majority wants to keep them at 8 (level 8 pay scale) then he’ll bow to the majority. Martinez asked about the legality of the raises, the law department said it should have been done legislatively not administratively. The change in staff also makes them no longer civil servants, they are technically exempt staff. McNamara said they may be being paid as aides but they are not legislatively aides. Phil Copeland said they know they are in hard rough times, he is wondering if anyone there thinks they can balance the budget by cutting everything up. He thinks they said if they cut to much they will not be able to provide services. Copeland thinks having one aide share three people is not necessarily a good thing.

Collins said there needs to be a job description for the aides, then when you get to the classification from 6 to 8, there should have been some type of a desk audit, you don’t have to have legislation for that. There also needs to be a policy in terms of who is responsible/chain of command. They don’t have a standard for discipline, even though they are unclassified employees, in the charter, under 171, that’s where it belongs, the charter is conflicting on this. Collins said the big picture is what do they do, the duties change from an at large to a district, when you look at the overall performance, if you have poorly performing individual, you can’t use the same brush on all five, that never works, you deal with it as an individual issue. He agreed with the concept that there needs to be a package on this. Brown said hiring additional aides may not be practical right now, but because of the trust level issues the council staff has taken on a great deal more since citizens think they will get more done by calling council instead of city departments. Shultz said as the only person who worked as a district council member and an at large, she agrees the job duties are different as far as the demands made on an aide. When they started with aides they hired their own, so they agreed on those aides when they were hired, the intent at that time was to let the council people have assistants, they were not intended to be the general staff, there was never an evaluation process, but it should apply to every member of the staff, you are going to have to appoint someone to the over all staff.

Lindsay Webb agreed with Collin’s points, as to the desk analysis, they may discover that aides are doing things for some that others are not having done. Sidestepping the salary issue, she thinks until they have all the facts they don’t know what they are dealing with. She thinks this council would be served well by someone between Jerry and the aides who could handle more involved experiences, there is such a load of constituent services to get involved in a big investigative process, she has not been able to work with her aide on drafting legislation, there is not the time in the day or the aptitude. She’d like someone intermediate to work on legislation, for her money she thinks they need to make a commitment today to do this desk analysis, job descriptions, policy manual and see what the data shows as far as the staff. She said in her experience in working with a non-profit, they hired a firm to do this when they merged, making sure her job description met her pay scale.

She said if she could hire someone off the street she’d know what she needed, she did not get to pick an aide she was assigned an aide. There is a seniority issue and if that is going to be the case, that should be addressed. Copeland asked is it by seniority, he was given an aide and he wanted the other aide and couldn’t get it, yet Rob, Betty and Wilma hired their aides. Gerald said the aides are there till they are fired or retire, while individual council people hired them and now it is by Council seniority, the new council members have no choice. Copeland said he thinks all of the aides they have are good, but he wants to know how that happened. Ludeman said the aides are a direct result of the new form of government from 1994, the only reason George and Rob hired them was because they had to interview them to hire them. Gibbons said they would present the resumes to those who had the “opening” – Sarantou said when he got to council he was assigned an aide, (there have been actual names of those who no longer work or work for the city mentioned during this discussion. I’ve opted to not include any of the names of staff members, current or past mentioned.)

Sarantou said he doesn’t think there was a staff person hired when Copeland came on, he asked Gerald to check that. They are pretty much talking over themselves, Sarantou asked if the aides work at the pleasure of council, first Gerald said yes, then he needs to clarify, the way the aides were before is classified employees with the exception of the secretary to the clerk, there is a job description for salary group 6 though their salary group was changed to 8 – they had evaluations at one time. The Law Department told them to stop doing the evaluations. Everything is in there for the salary 6 group. Then there was discussion as to could aides be paid overtime in money, it was stated they take it in comp time but legally they could ask to be paid.

All of those present voted for a desk audit to be done by Human Resources, that will not create a cost factor.

Collins said Secretary 3 is about where the level the pay is if the job description is consistent with a secretary 3 they need to do a desk audit to see if that’s it. Collins wanted to know why we are not charging back to the assessed funds for some of the constituent services, such as flooding, storm water, if that was done it would save money being taken from the general fund, that part of their operational costs should come from other than the general fund, a significant part of their work deals with the issues that deal with those funds, if the desk audit shows that 25% of their duties involves water then it should be billed, Gerald said that is being done in part, there is an approved indirect cost charge back based on council, mayor, etc. There is an indirect cost allocation.

Shultz made some comments concerning a staff person hired by Ujvagi and other staff who were hired that ran campaigns out of the office, she said that Gerald came there and did he work while Mike Beazley ran campaigns, she said she is the one who got rid of the aides, one was gotten rid of because she was not a resident. Collins interjected and said Shultz might want to reconsider her statements because she is talking about individuals and might want to go into Executive Session. Copeland said he can’t recall what Betty said happened (as to campaigning taking place), he wanted to know if they are going to get. A majority of those present straw polled that the aides would be kept at 8 and no additional staff would be hired.

Gerald said addresses the this issue as far as the staff, then the discussion turned to what a classified versus an unclassified employee has and what the staff was. If you are unclassified you are an employee, only one listed is the secretary to the clerk. They then started talking over themselves again, Collins said he still has the floor, it was agreed to have the desk audit.

A short break was taken, then they resumed with discussion on the Sergeant at Arms position. Collins said since he was the one who took this to SERB and won it, they can’t really change what is there, the duties are under the Ford administration was exclusive to the Mayor’s office and came down to serve only for Council meetings, then under Carty’s first term, the Sergeant at Arms moved from the 22 to the 21st form, it says exclusive to the Mayor and Council, within the policy. When a Council member needs an investigation, he referenced parking, abandoned cars, when they had the meeting then, the Sergeant at Arms went out and put flyers for the trash meeting. Collins said he disagrees with McNamara, who said he’d love to respond because he didn’t think Collins understood his position.

McNamara said they need security, he is not advocating changing the language now, but do we need an exclusive position, he does not think a police officer putting flyers on cars is a good use of a police officer time, for nuisance complaints, yes, McNamara does not think we are affectively using his time and skills. Brown said she uses the Sergeant at Arms for what Collins said, she wants a full time person, not Tom one day and Gerry the next. Steel said this is another thing they need to look into, but he thinks they have to be careful when it comes to security concerns and there are times when a nuisance call they could need security. Steel said that he thinks there is confidential information in Council packets, (which I’m not sure about since they are actually online), Martinez said it seems like they are killing a fly with a shot gun. Collins said it began back in the late 60’s early 70’s – a patrolman received Sergeant’s pay. It was basically a political appointment and then one retired this was under the Owens administration, she wanted to take a retired officer and hire him. That’s why Collins took it SERP and if the TPPA wants it to change then it could be. McNamara interjected that the City could ask for a change in the language.

Copeland doesn’t think we can cut ourselves into a balanced budget. Copeland felt they needed a police officer, Martinez felt there could be a better use of his time. Mike Craig has another security issue, he said he’d bring it up later. Ludeman said the next go round of union negotiations that it be recommended it be looked at. Ludeman said the reason that his desk is where it is, is because they had threats against them during the smoking issue and they have nuts, there is a lot of downtime but there are a lot of things as far as nuisances and other issues. Ludeman wanted to know if there was overtime related to that position, there was at one time, so it’s not known if he is submitting in over time. Collins said the only way that can take place is if it is signed for by the Clerk of Courts. Ludeman shared that the Sergeant at Arms went to a funeral home to deliver a resolution and how that was an important public service aspect of the job.

Webb felt the security aspect of the job is relevant, she shared a personal situation where she needed security, and has used the current Sergeant at Arms related to suspected drug cases. She thinks they should revisit this when contract negotiations come up. Tom Waniewski asked if security was in place downstairs, Brown interjected, the don’t even have guns. Waniewski said if security is an issue why isn’t he at the council committee meetings? Why not have a police officer on call, he knows they are contractually obligated but he hates to see him out there putting out flyers. Copeland said if something happens they’d regret that (as in not having a full time Sergeant at Arms). A majority felt that they should keep the Sergeant at Arms position as it is. Craig felt they should have the badge process at the door, anyone who has a city badge can come in but anyone else has to be buzzed in, they should have a camera there and an intercom. Sarantou felt they had a contractual situation. They have to have security, government can not be held hostage.

Martinez asked when the last time a security plan in place, they are a tenant, they have a safety coordinator who has a whistle…There was plexiglass but it was felt to not send the right message, that it looked like Fort Knox when they did that.

Now on to committees, Brown felt that they did it this way because everyone could be a chair, she wanted to keep things the way they are but if you have a committee meeting have more than one thing on the agenda and don’t have two meetings in one week on different things. Waniewski said the main reason to have a committee meeting is to vet issues, he’s in favor of reducing the size, is he’s come up with 7 and has re-defined some of them.

He said they need to just assign co-chairs, he thinks having one so everyone can have one defeats the purpose of having one. Webb said she was appointed to 6 committees, others are on less committees than her and she’s been brushed with not having poor attendance but it’s because of that factor, it’ s not that she doesn’t want to serve, she thinks it’s overkill to have to have everyone have a committee, she thinks they could do co-chairs and have the same effect, she then thinks they would have multiple items on the agenda, which would avoid the 15 minute committee meetings on one zoning issue. She thinks there is a way to appoint committee co-chairs more on aptitude and less on politics.

Waniewski said that council members also attend meetings outside of council duties, Copeland said committee meetings are being used to get infront of the media, he thinks they need to move them back upstairs so people stop staging and talking and they would get things done faster. He also wants to have them in the evening, if they have them at night they aren’t going to have them upstairs. McNamara said they could call committee meetings at night, there are staffing issues involved which would include over time. Copeland said there was one time where he was five minutes late for a meeting, it had already ended by the time he got there and the media reported him as not attending.

McNamara said there would be some issues that would have to be worked through as far as rotating chairs of the meeting, etc. Craig said night time meetings would create over time not just council staff but city staff if someone’s attendance is required at a meeting. Ludeman thought they could rotate chair duties for committees, Ludeman said when he met with Bell they talked about communication with the residents, he thought they should take time between now and the first of the year and organize it. McNamara said it makes sense to do it before the council president election. Sarantou felt that intergovernmental relations needs to be kept though it has been vastly under-utilized. Sarantou asked about TPS, Steel said while the board meetings are at night, the committee meetings take place during the day.

It appeared to be the consensus that they should go to six or seven committee meetings and less members on each committee, Collins said if there is a major issue they can call a Committee of the Whole meeting. Collins said they don’t need 7 people on each committee – Sarantou asked what would they do if they had a tie, Collins said what they do now. Sunshine laws would dictate if the number goes lower it could impact, less committees with a larger number of members is safer said McNamara. Steel said if there was a good relationship between the chair and the co-chair and not “I am the god of my committee” it would be more effective which needs either a level of trust or a rule.

They spent a great deal of time discussing if a co-chair could call a committee meeting, etc. McNamara said for council members to get their suggestions to McNamara by Thursday with the goal of trying to address this at the next committee meeting. Their idea with the number of committees. Brown said she wanted to wait until after the elections take place.

Collins then wanted to discuss the electronic storage and document storage, he said they really need to clean up the file/storage areas. He wanted to look at bringing in Lott Industries to help them turn this information into an electronic format, they would not only be helping Lott, but it would also help them, how it looks now is embarrassing. There are boxes and junk all over. Whether they have interns working there as their work area, that can be determined, but that area is a mess. Gibbons said the boxes are supposed to be in order, she also said you’ll find that most of that information does not need to be kept, such as Sobczak kept every Friday packet, Escobar kept every magazine clipping, they have to keep the material for three years after a council person is done. There used to be a council librarian but that position was not refilled when that person became a council aide.

Shultz felt if there was an audit of records there would be a problem since the “red books” had not been done since Beazley left in the vault area. Steel broached the topic of a paperless process, where everything is completely electronic, he’d like to see Council head in that direction as TPS’s Board has recently done. All the way through the process it is electronic. Which would be basically like I’m doing now, as meetings were held they would be updated online.

Ludeman said he agrees with that, that being involved in some of the Lucas County Commissioner’s meetings they appear to be paperless, they have their laptops on the dias. McNamara likes it, though it would require wireless, Gibbons said their computer system is seriously outdated, that they can not even open window7 documents, it was stated that they would have to upgrade. Martinez asked about open office, it was stated that the current IT department was not supportive. Brown thought it was odd when she came from TPS to the Council how she had a computer on the board but council members didn’t have them. Shultz said they need to remember where they came from to get the ERP since at that time people did not even know how to operate computers.

There was then discussion on the empty space on 21, perhaps offering the space to general assembly members, Sarantou asked how much it would cost to make the council offices bigger, it was about 10,000 according to Gerald, to move those walls is fairly expensive. Shultz said that is the council floor and she’d rather have a bigger office than have them let legislatures use what is supposed to council space, that they should have enough room in their offices to entertain several people that the Council president should not be the only one to have a large office.

That’s basically it, now they are talking about Christmas parties and topics like that….it’s now 11:12 a.m.

There could be typo’s in this – I’ll fix it later, since I was concentrating on content. Updated 1:03 p.m. bolded and some items edited for clarification purposes only.