Cape Coral HR director fired
Last week City Manager Terry Stewart fired Human Resource Director, Phil Jackson under City Charter provision 5.04 (a) allowing the CM to remove any employee "for the good of the city." This action came about over a hiring issue dealing with a minority applicant.
Since
There are some who believe the CM may have been under pressure by certain council members to fire Jackson and may have prompted his decission. Here are some comments that appeared in the news media, "Terry Stewart was very deliberate in the way he conducted his investigation," Day said. "We arrived at the same place. We just took different routes."
"I expected no less of Terry Stewart," said Rosado. The Hispanic community was upset about the case, he said. "This definitely leaves a bad taste," Rosado said. "When people come up to me and ask how to get a job with the city, I say, 'Trust the process.' "
The “at will” provision was added to the city charter (by the voters) back in the mid 1990’s when David Sallee was the city manager. Many believe this charter revision was added to give a weak city manager more control over his employees.
The question is, how do you feel about the “at will” provision that allows for termination of any city employee by the city manager with or without cause?
posted by Civic at 8/19/2005 04:13:00 PM
2 Comments:
This "At Will" firing is quite disturbing and will be costly to the residents of Cape Coral!
There was obvious cause and if he was fired for cause, it would not have cost the residents anything!
It would have been interesting to hear from Mr. Jackson on his reasons for doing what he did.
E-mail sent to Council member Bertolini on 9-04-05
I watched a replay of the minority board meeting this morning and I have a number of concerns. I will focus on two areas.
a) I question Board Member Duran's use of this forum to make public statements regarding her personal situation especially since it is reported that she is bringing action against the city.
Her statements relative to the salary offer and the implications of bias are hearsay and unsubstantiated. What have been substantiated from my understanding were procedural irregularities that lead to the dismissal of the HR Director. Pleading her personal case, while a member of a city board, is in my opinion improper amounting to nothing more than her using the position as a bully pulpit. I found her some of her remarks to be aggressive and offensive.
It was also wrong for others on the board to conclude there was bias in the hiring based on Duran's comments (Please remember they are a recommending body only). I also found it disturbing for board members to be mentioning the names of the other employees in question. This was unprofessional on their part.
b) Board member Stewart's comments regarding his hope for Hilary Clinton's successful presidential election in 2008 were totally out of line. The Minority Affairs board should not be a format for political statements.
R. LePera
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