This podcast interview is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Player FM, and right here:
On the podcast, Mayor Eileen Weir shares the logic behind the Independence council’s brand new public comment policy. Plus, we walk through one controversial week in summer 2018 in which people’s jobs were on the line and the charter’s rules were under scrutiny.
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Q: You announced a new public comment policy at the January 22, 2019 meeting that eliminates advance sign-ups. Why the change?
A: The policy that we had in the past was the agenda comes out on Thursday and by noon on Friday, you needed to contact the city clerk if you wanted to speak to the council. If the agenda was late getting out or people couldn’t meet that deadline, they were not allowed to speak to the council unless they contacted a council member and asked to speak. The council member could request at the council meeting that we suspend the rules of order to allow somebody to speak.
Q: Wow.
A: Most people when they come to speak want to talk about something that the council’s gonna be voting on that night. We always have our citizen comments at the end of the meeting. If somebody wanted to speak on something that we were voting on that night, we would also need to suspend the rules of order to change that around. It seemed like we were making a lot of exceptions all the time. We hope that it’s gonna encourage some more citizen participation in our council discussions.
Q: I want to take us to June 18, 2018. Midway through the meeting, Councilmember Curt Dougherty announces seemingly out of nowhere that he wants to eliminate six positions from the Independence Power & Light utility. What was going through your mind?
A: It was a surprise to me. I didn’t know that motion was going to be made. People were caught very much off guard. It is in the authority of the city council to amend the budget, which was what the motion was. It’s not within the authority of the city council to do any personnel changes.
Q: The council voted 4-3 to save $1 million by getting rid of seven people’s jobs. A week later, the director of Independence Power & Light came to the meeting and criticized that vote. Where is the line for you between standing up for your employees and respecting the chain of command?
A: I think it’s naive to think that a city employee can stand up and be representing himself or herself as a citizen. We don’t get to take off those hats when we assume positions as city employees or as elected officials. I’m the mayor of the city 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The director subsequently resigned from the position. He clearly had that in mind when he chose to come and speak as a “citizen” to the council without the knowledge of the city manager.
Q: And you think it was a resignation? Not something to send a message to other department heads that “if you show up and question council’s motives, this will happen to you, too”?
A: No, I don’t think it was that. I think he was clearly dismayed, and understandably so. But I don’t think that a city employee or elected official can come to a council meeting and speak and say, “I’m not here in my professional capacity. I’m here as a citizen.”
Q: At that meeting, Councilmember Karen DeLuccie made a serious charge that the council violated the charter with its vote the previous week. Here is section 2.15:
Councilmembers shall not direct the appointment of any person to, or their removal from, office or employment by the city manager or by any other authority, or, except as provided in this charter, participate in any manner in the appointment or removal of officers and employees….
Your reaction is what?
A: I voted against the motion. I voted for the reversal of that motion. Clearly I feel it is outside the council’s authority to decide what the positions should be or who should hold them. That said, the motion was to amend the budget. It really did fall into a gray area.
Q: There’s actually more to that paragraph because it goes on to say:
If any councilmember violates any provision of this section, said councilmember shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than twenty-five (25) dollars nor more than five hundred (500) dollars. Any such conviction of any councilmember shall be cause for removal from office, and such councilmember shall be automatically removed by the said conviction….
Wow. Obviously, whoever wrote that was pretty damn serious about council members not hiring or firing people on their own. You can probably imagine scenarios from the past that might have prompted this severe reaction. Did your council’s vote a week prior trigger this provision?
A: It didn’t. No charges were ever brought forward regarding that. You’re correct that when the charter was established, it was following a period of a lot of patronage. The charter commission took it very seriously about the council’s authority over personnel matters.
Follow Mayor Eileen Weir on Twitter: @weirIndep4
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