A "Hostile Work Environment"

My mistake.  I was told this past Thursday's Commission meeting lasted 3 1/2 hours.  The video is out, and the meeting only lasted 3:06.

I'm not going to pretend I wasted three hours and six minutes of my life listening to the video of this meeting.  As I already said, two people told me about it, and both made it clear there was a great deal of wasted time.

I do want to address a show that was staged by David Hernandez, Ginny O'Halpin, and Roseann Prado.  The show started with Ginny's noting that it was her understanding that Roseann wanted to read a letter "into the record," proceeded to Roseann's reading of that letter (from David Hernandez), and then moved to David's in person expansion of the same material that was in the letter.  If David was present to speak, and the meeting was recorded, then it's not clear what was the purpose of the letter.  Or vice versa.

The letter began by registering David's complaint that he resigned, because a "hostile work environment" had been created for him, and he seemed to allege it adversely affected his "health."  Both the letter and David's immediately succeeding verbal explanation centered mostly on criticism of Roxy Ross, who David complained spoke very frequently to him, and wanted to know details about what David was doing with respect to various issues, but also included Chuck Ross, who David complained called David's prior employer to "get dirt" on David, and Mac Kennedy, who was said to have written "11,000" e-mails to David in five months, and even me, regarding this blog.  One of David's very specific complaints was that some unnamed Commissioner called him at 7:30 AM, which reportedly led David's alleged "girlfriend" to accuse him of "cheating on" her with the Village.  David lauded Ginny, Will Tudor, and Dan Samaria, who he said were supportive of him.  Ginny followed David's verbal screed by thanking him, and concluded that "due to litigation, there will be no discussion on this matter."  Ginny then recognized Dan, who complained or criticized that "some people have created a toxic work environment, so bad that people would leave."  Ginny did not interrupt Dan from doing precisely what she just said would not be permitted.  Dan specified that we have now lost "two city managers."  Anyone who didn't know the issues might assume that Dan regretted the loss of Krishan Manners, whose "loss" Dan fully supported, and whom Dan is suing for abusing Dan.  I don't know if Dan knows what planet he's on, but I don't.  And Dan's speech was read from a piece of paper, because clearly either Dan or someone else wrote it out in advance.  This was all carefully choreographed.

To be fair to Ginny, unless it's just evidence that she is unable to run a meeting even according to her own rules, she did allow Roxy Ross to present some responses to David.  Roxy challenged that some of David's assertions were "figments," and she offered proof.  Where David claimed Roxy spoke to him every day, Roxy said there were days and sometimes even weeks that she did not speak to him.  She also properly pointed out that speaking to the manager is the job of Commissioners, and particularly in their roles as elected and paid representatives of Village residents, who are their constituents.  The Village manager is not a Commissioner's constituent.  S/he is a Commissioner's employee.  The Commissioner is the manager's boss.

Ginny also allowed Mac to defend himself.  Among other things, Mac pointed out that phone calls that occurred at unusual hours between him and David were initiated by David, not by Mac.  I can only assume that Mac was right, since David also called me at very peculiar hours.  Last week, he called me twice between 10:30 and 11:00 PM -- I did not answer the phone -- and when I asked Commissioners to have a word with him about his telephone habits, he later wrote to me to claim that he was calling to ask me about my solar panels, because he was thinking that solar panels on the recreation building would be a good idea.

Having declared that there would be "no discussion" regarding David's letter and speech, then entertaining discussion from Dan Samaria, Roxy Ross, and Mac Kennedy, Ginny then asked Will Tudor if he had any comments to make.  (Keystone Kops?)  No, he did not.

Then, Ginny proposed to address our new need for an interim manager, and she suggested that it was already established protocol in the Village to elevate the Village clerk if we needed an interim manager.  In fact, we've done that twice, when the clerk was Maria Camara.  So Ginny naturally suggested we elevate Roseann Prado, whom she first referred to as Maria.  What Ginny may not know is that the next to last time we needed an interim manager, we reached out to Krishan Manners, and the last time we needed one, it was Ginny herself who found and recommended David Hernandez.  So, elevating the Village clerk is not a reliable precedent, and we've used it half the time, when the clerk happened to be an extremely capable Village resident.  Ginny also proposed to designate Luis Cabrera as an assistant to the interim manager.  Presumably, if Ginny thought her proposed choice of an interim manager needed an assistant, then she was saying something about her own judgment about the real capability of the interim manager she proposed.

The meeting then moved in a very tortured way to the agenda, which Ginny had been working to defer.  Since the first agenda item was Roxy's, and it was about a proper search for a permanent manager, which is something Ginny had persistently resisted doing, it seems almost inescapable that Ginny was specifically resisting Roxy.  At a time that we might theoretically want the smartest, most level-headed person we could find, with a depth of real "institutional knowledge," Ginny was working to deflect exactly that.

It was at that point, which was after about a half hour, that I stopped watching this tragedy.  If you want to see it, it's here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ0GUZHLklg

Since David Hernandez took the added trouble to complain about me and this blog, I will say that I have pointed out his failures, missteps, and shortcomings, all of which were patently evident, and more than that, even if he had been doing a wonderful job, I have urged the Commission to begin the necessary and urgent search for a permanent manager.  This is what we always do in this circumstance.  It is what we must do in this circumstance.  Even if a majority of the Commission thought the world of David, and decided, in the context of a proper search, to hire him as permanent manager, which I pointed out to them was their prerogative, they had to do the proper search.  I make no apologies and no excuses for the positions I took.  And I took them publicly, including in this blog, where anyone, including David or any Commissioner, could respond any way they wanted to.