Disclaimer: The comments in this blog are my personal opinion and may or may not reflect an adopted position of the city of Glendale and its city council.
Prior to the September 10th city council workshop meeting, reporters representing a local TV station descended upon us and incessantly questioned the mayor and councilmembers regarding the hiring of former Glendale Police Chief Rick St. John as the city’s first Public Safety Director. Not surprisingly Councilmembers Aldama and Turner offered sound bites intimating that the council had authority over this City of Glendale employee hire.
It’s time to set the record straight.
It states explicitly in the city’s charter with regard to the city council, “Sec. 19. – Interference in administrative service. “Except as otherwise provided in this charter, neither the council nor any of its members shall interfere with the execution by the city manager of his powers and duties, or order, directly or indirectly, the appointment by the city manager of any person to an office or employment or his removal therefrom.”
The charter then goes on to specifically authorize as a power of the city manager,”Sec. 3. – City manager; powers and duties. “The city manager shall be chief executive officer and head of the administrative branch of the city government. He shall be responsible for the proper administration of all affairs of the city and to that end, subject to the provisions of this charter, he shall have the power and shall be required to:
“(3) Appoint, and when deemed necessary for the good of the service, lay-off, suspend,
transfer, demote or remove all department heads, officers and employees of the city,
subject to such merit system regulations as the council may adopt;”
The city council, by charter, has no power to hire, fire, suspend or in any way affect the position of any city employee. The only direct hires of the city council are the city manager, the city attorney, the city clerk and the city’s chief judge. That’s it. The council has no authority regarding any other employee position. The city manager could have hired the Easter Bunny for that position and council has no say…no authority with regard to his choice.
The only way the city council has any power over employees is during the budget cycle. Council can approve or deny new employee positions or can increase or decrease the number of full time employees (FTEs) within any city department’s budget appropriation. In June of 2019, council approved the creation of several new city positions by authorizing the funding of those positions. Among them was a Public Safety Director and a Council Assistant. I mention these two positions specifically to demonstrate what occurred after those positions were approved by city council at its budget process.
Here is a case in point. Council approved the addition of one FTE who would be destined to become my new Council Assistant. In July the position of Council Assistant was posted. It is my understanding that there were nearly a 100 applicants. The Human Resources Department went through every application and determined which of the applicants met the qualifications for the job. I asked and was told the process reduced the list to about 60 applicants. Those applicants were then reviewed by an appropriate staff member based upon specific criteria for the council assistant job requirements. Those finalists were interviewed by a panel of city employees resulting in a final list of three applicants. Since I was the councilmember who would be using this new hire, I was invited to meet the three finalists. Please note it was not within my authority to demand or even to ask to interview the finalists. I was asked for my opinion and offered it knowing full well that I had no authority in choosing the person who would be my council assistant. Fortunately for me, the person I felt would do the best job was the choice of senior management. That position was filled in early August.
In the case of the Public Safety Director, city council authorized the position’s funding with its approval of the Fiscal Year 2019-20 budget. On August 27, 2019 city council approved an agreement with Interim Public Management LLC (IPM) to secure candidates for the position. As was stated by Jim Brown, Human Resources Director, the applicants for the position were narrowed down to three finalists. I do not know who or when or how many staff was involved in the interview process but Mr. Brown stated that the selection was made after interviews were conducted. The decision was strictly within the authority of the city manager. It was not city council’s decision to make and the city charter does not grant the council any authority over the process or the selection.
Occasionally, and not in every instance, council has been invited to attend a reception for the finalists for a position such as Assistant City Manager. It is a reception open to many employees not just councilmembers. Sometimes a few of the city councilmembers will attend. Rarely, if ever, are our opinions solicited and even if they had been, they have no bearing on the final selection.
Why the intense media scrutiny? Is it to gin up their ratings? Does it reflect anti-police sentiment expressed by some of the general public? Perhaps because they haven’t done their homework as to how the selection process works? Or does it have to do with the intense media attention given to “use of force” policy by the Glendale Police Department?
I would just remind everyone that government employees are terminated all the time and knowing government as we all do, it’s got to be something pretty serious to get fired or to resign in lieu of termination. Yet I don’t see the media hounding any local governmental leaders if an employee other than a police officer or fire fighter is terminated. This statement in no way diminishes employee bad conduct for public safety employees are held to a higher standard since their mission is to protect the public. All leadership within Glendale does not condone or support bad acts committed by any employee within the City of Glendale. It doesn’t matter if it’s within the finance department, the water department or the police department.
Within any organization, public or private, there are employees who are terminated or should be. Why, I bet there are one or two at your place of work that you’ve wondered why they haven’t already been fired. That does not mean that aberrant, out-of-the norm behavior is condoned by the organization’s leadership. It does signify that there is a long process, often expensive and often painful for both sides, designed to protect the rights of both sides and sometimes the outcome satisfies no one.
Glendale is deserving of criticism when criticism is due but in this case I suspect the media didn’t do all of their homework on this one or perhaps they are in a vendetta mood. Who knows? It may be both.
© Joyce Clark, 2019
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Ms. Clark,
I humbly disagree with your opinion about the media not doing their homework. I think they did do their homework. You, very eloquently I must add, described the process of hiring FTEs. Correct me if I am wrong here, the council approved additional FTEs by way of approving the funds in the budget. This approval was merely for funding, not an actual candidate. Am I right so far?
For your assistant, HR reviewed applications, narrowed it down to three, you had a meeting with them, informally and gave your opinion. Lucky for you it was the candidate selected by a rigorous process conducted by city staff.
This is not at all how the other applicant was selected. For some reason, this process was conducted by an outside agency. Why is that? The process you described for the assistant position seemed to be very thorough and fair. Is HR incapable of conducting this process for executive level positions? The other point of contention is that the budget approval included funds for this position but you mentioned a subsequent approval request on August 27th. Why did this require secondary approval?
Please forgive my naivety. I don’t quite understand how city government works. I really can’t make heads or tails out of the city charter at times. It seems very clear until it doesn’t. There are many areas that appear to be up for interpretation.
Back to the point of contention. Did your assistant require a second approval like the assistant city manager position? If so, was it before or after the candidate was selected? I believe it was CM Turner who asked for confirmation that the request was, in fact, to approve the funds to hire Mr. St John, recently retired chief of police, as Assistant City Manager of public safety. This was confirmed. I don’t have the exact quotes. You failed to mention this exchange between CM Turner and Mr. Brown. Maybe I have it wrong. If so, please correct me.
Why the need for an outside agency please? How is this a wise use of taxpayer dollars when the city employs an entire department to complete these tasks? If it is solely up to the city manager, why would an outside agency be necessary? Why would his staff not be capable of reviewing applications and narrowing it down to three finalists? I think this was what puzzled the media. I think this is worth scrutiny. Don’t you?
It makes me sad that anti use of excessive force is equated with anti police sentiment. I was horrified seeing a young man, on the ground, bleeding from his head. The story mentioned the young man crying for help, crying for somebody to call the police. The man standing over him replied, saying I am the police. Imagine if that was your son, your son with special needs, autism, developmental delays, disability or serious mental illness, on the hot pavement, beaten to the ground, crying for help only to be chastised by the person hired to protect and serve. Any reasonable person would not condone this use of excessive force. This is not anti police sentiment. This is pro humanity. This was not media spin. This was an individual who had no business wearing that uniform and certainly no business wearing that uniform in our city. This officer was one of St. John’s but I still don’t think this was why the media was so concerned with this story.
There are those who don’t approve of “double dipping” as they say. The process by which one retires only to get rehired in a different position, collect a salary and a second retirement. I have no opinion on this. I can understand why this is upsetting to some but I don’t know many who would not do the same thing given the chance. I don’t think this was the main issue the media was trying to expose.
Maybe their concern was history repeating itself. There was a terrible incident some years back in another state that began in the same manner. It didn’t end well. Ask around, maybe someone can tell you about it. It was tragic.
I still think the media was within their right to question the process involved. I am glad that they did. If their theories were accurate then more accountability from the city is warranted. If they were incorrect, more accountability from the press is warranted. Either way, the people win. Or do we lose? So hard to tell these days.
I would take great joy in learning what mistakes I have made in forming my opinions. I almost always appreciate clarification. I am only human after all and this city business is fairly new to me.
Hello Victor, It is a common practice of many cities to use an outside consultant to recruit for senior management positions. Councils often employ a consultant when recruiting for city manager positions. Council will then give direction as to whether the recruitment is nationwide or regional. Once direction is given by council the HR department works closely with the consultant reporting back periodically to council. Remember a city manager hire is the direct responsibility of a council. With regard to other senior management positions, such as an Assistant City Manager or in this case, Public Safety Director, the process is generally the same only it occurs between the city manager and HR. The Aug, 27th meeting was for an amended contract amount for the consultant’s services reflective of the Public Safety Director position.
Thank you for the clarification Ms. Clark. I appreciate the response. I imagine even as a private citizen, some of my comments may have been to contentious for a response. I try to be respectful of your position and stay as neutral as possible. It is not as easy as it may seem. Many of these issues are emotionally charged. My goal is not to lash out or place blame. It is to understand and be an informed constituent and voter.
I only recently started reading your blog. I never paid too much attention to local government until my neighbors started talking about their disappointment and frustration with the city. That peaked my interest. Next my wife had a really difficult time getting information about recreation centers and the summer activities there. After a couple weeks she gave up and took our kids to the city of Phoenix summer program. That’s not like her to give up so quickly. She is a firm believer of spending locally and getting a return on her tax investment with the government. This was problematic but it ended up working out. The big motivator for me was listening to my former coworkers talk about how the city was squeezing them out. I honestly thought they were being paranoid. It seemed too far fetched. That’s when I started paying attention. It’s all very confusing and sometimes overwhelming. I do appreciate you taking the time to write a blog and respond to the people.
Joyce once again another factually written blog however I think the nuance of the controversy was missed.
1. Yes, the council should not and usually do not get involved in the hiring and firing of employees. But we both know of occasions when those boundaries were crossed and the question is was this one of those occasion and if so why?
2. Why are we hiring a newly retired city employee back into the city so soon? The last time that happened we ended up with a spring training facility we could not afford and $300 million in debt.
3. Was this retired police chief hired to rub salt in the wounds of the defeated firefighters union and to send a message to the various police associations/unions?
4. How competitive of a process was this hiring? One week after retiring he signed up with IPM and then the city operating under an open ended contract with IPM to fill random vacancies hired the ex-chief and about one month later bestowed the title and position on him. Something smells fishy.
5. One can ask why can’t we use IPM to fill the high number of vacancies in other parts of the organization like community development and utilities?
6. On a different note the continued effort by local government to bypass the the various retirement systems is why we have such a weak public retirement systems.
Now I am rather confident that nothing will become of this or any other investigation because you have some very skilled lawyers and HR people that will make sure the cut is “safe”. Neither of which makes it right “darkness reigns until light catches it”.
Tahj, I possess no knowledge of any council involvement in the hiring of Public Safety Director. Obviously council approved of the concept or the council authorization of the position would not have made it through the budget process. I approved of the concept after doing personal research and discovering that it has worked well in many cities nationwide. As to the choice of Rick St. John that is best answered by the city manager. The city’s HR department is responsible for filling positions below those of senior management.
Why the intense media scrutiny?
Because they help keep politicians straight.