While City Council did pass a resolution to put the City Manager on notice of their intent not to renew her contract when it expires April 30, the move was in part precipitated by the language of the contract itself.
With no notice by January 31, a failure to reach a successor agreement would result in a six month severance payment and that sword over their head clearly places the Council in a position three of them didn't want to be in.
The only way notice can occur is by an affirmative act of the Council and that means a resolution had to be passed in public session. With so many matters in process, I feel the City's interests would best be served by continued use of CM Corriveau's institutional knowledge and relationships. There is also the issue of how do you treat a 27 year employee who has worked diligently in anticipation of retirement at an appropriate time.
There is always a risk to those employed in positions like this, as the area's two municipal managers know.
The resolution presented last night was drafted hours before the meeting and I didn't see it till it was offered up in executive session. I was not surprised at the sentiments but am hopeful cooler heads can prevail and these differences can be resolved.
Watertown Daily Times Watertown City Council won’t review city manager’s contract
50 comments:
` And just who does Smith have in mind for the job ? Why didn't he tell us this in the campaign ?
probably a St Croix
Just like in the case of Ogdensburg, you should not break up with your wife until you have a better looking lover on the sidelines. And when you make that move you should be willing to pay a little alimony as a consolation prize...as in 6 months salary. This move was in poor taste.
You have Butler making unconstitutional laws. You have Smith getting fired from his ambulance driving job and you have Roxy that could never fill the arcade or keep the pipes from freezing. But for some reason they think they are going to get a perfect city manager? For that price?
Got news for ya...anyone with that much talent is out there making millions in business and would not have much patience for dealing with city council as it exists. And the council would lose in the court of public opinion if they had someone with that much talent to go against.
Smith likes to tout his close connections to McHugh....They are buds. Senator/Congressman/Secretary McHugh will be looking for a job after O'bama is dismissed in November. Give his availability some thought. After all, he's itching to come back home (isn't he?) and he began his ri$e to glory as ass't to the Watn City Manager. BUT----let him assume his own relocation costs from the sale of his Washington area home.
Smith. Smith. Smith.
Mabel Walker.
Bob Gorman, make it official.
Danny. Danny. Danny. He's earned it.
Ronald G. Forbes.
General (ret.) Mike Plummer
Linda Miles.
ray canale
Ask the Johnsons who they want. Then act.
RELAX !
Smith is only one of three votes needed to do anything.
Let's assign the task to the FDRLO and give them office space at the Black River Valley Club.
Donald A.B.C.D. E. Coon and give him office space in the Woolworth Building overlooking the busy Square.
Mary wouldn't care what she did to a 27 year employee as has been proven in the past, so no sympathy from me.
I will say however she has done a decent job in managing this city and the 3 morons that voted to not renew her contract are no one to judge.
Tale of Two Cities. Maple and Garland. Art and Mary. Bye Bye.
if you didn't know about Smith's feelings toward her, well you were not paying attention.
I and many others feel it's time for a change in management. Could be an indication why it was a close race. You may want to reach out to the residents of the city and get a feel for this one jeff.
“There is also the issue of how do you treat a 27 year employee who has worked diligently in anticipation of retirement at an appropriate time.”
Yeah, a city manager really should be granted tenure.
This is a surprise...not really, but still not a good choice until a search has been conducted and then a decision made as to renew or go your seperate ways. The back door politics is silly, but the same back door antics may be what has to happen to take Mrs. Burns out of her position on the council after her incident, to me that is far worst than the offenses the current city manager has made. just my two cents.
Poverty Bob...
Just don't like this sneaky surprise attack,there was nothing put forth to city residents that she was not doing her job.I also did not care for the tone of Mr Smith on the news last night,as he half giggled about the matter.Sounded like a vindictive little boy that got his way against someone that took away his toy.The public who pays the bills deserve to know what the hell is going on there..
November is long gone. Vote is over. 4 years you can come back and push for you change.
This is not the right thing to do she is no where near as incompetent as Mrs. Burns...
The problems in the city can be attributed to failures in DPW. That is where our incompetent leadership is and where we waste the most money at the top. Its a shame Mary or the Council failed to do anything about this. Now it falls to her.
What's sad is how many residents are complaining but don't know who Mary is, see also:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/7-NewsFox-28/119260314768824?ref=ts
I think it should be a unanimous decision of city council to be bring this sort of action with the city manager position, especially without any good explanation. Anything else makes it seem like a personality conflict with one or two council members who were able to sway the third to agree with them.
Can city council by a 3-2 vote get rid of any city employee?
FYI: I'd take the job and at 1/2 the pay now received by Mrs. Corriveau to show good faith on my part. I'd give the rest to the "Y" or some local Youth Center.
That outta be worth 3 votes, right? LOL LOL
I thought the Mayor and city Council actually ran the show. If something happened last summer at the fairgrounds I doubt if it is all Mary Corriveau's fault. Wasn't the Council watching? Hmmmmmm.
Corriveau works hard on her own time with many organizations for the betterment of the greater Watertown community. I doubt if shi**ty Smitty and "I'll drink to that, Burns" serve as hard! While off duty activities have little to do with the job it says a lot for Corriveaau's integrity.
This comment from he other thread sums it up:
The two people that run their own successful businesses voted to keep her...the rest want to sh$%-can her.
Dannie, your experience is in education, and motor pools. No one gets fired in those venues. In the real world people can get fired. This is a management level job, not a union protected rank and file position. Geeesh.
I look at it differently. 3 of the 5 members are unhappy with the manager. This can't be blown off as simply a personality issue. IF that is the case, the Manager clearly is lacking people skills to alienate 3 of the 5 council members.
So the first question that needs to be asked is,,,,,why? Just this week there was a negative editorial on the failure to repair the fountains, the parks and recs scandal (the buck stops with the city manager, not a clerk), the issue that dragged on about alcohol sales at the fairgrounds, and Council got blamed for inaction not the managers office. I am sure the list is longer.
Next let's look at the lack of leadership from the mayor. He has known this has been going on for a while? Mr. Mayor, what have you done to diffuse the situation. Have you had any meetings with Mrs. Corriveau to discuss the concerns of the other council members and come up with a corrective plan or did you just let if fester to avoid a confrontation during elections? What have you done to build a consensus that Mrs. Corriveau should be retained? You were a signatory to the manager's contract, how did you not know that a resolution would have to be coming forward at the contract imposed deadline knowing that Mr. Butler and another council person had met with the manager? Sounds like problem 2 is in your office.
And finally after all your shots at pension systems and their abuse on this blog how can you even suggest to keep a employee on just so they can make it to retirement? Is this the kinder gentler Jeff Graham or just a opportunist with this issue? Talk about failed leadership.
Hays should be next.
The manager works for the council. Just like any board, she is hired and fired by a majority vote. No different than school superintendents, hospital administrators, and the like. Why would you want her to stay if she doesn't have the support of a majority of her bosses?
Hayes should have gone long ago. His interests have always been his, not the City's.
The point is that the three people that are in favor of firing her have a long history of failures in life but the two that would keep her on, in spite of her shortcomings, have long track records of success in business. The hissy fit verses the practical.
Last time they threatened her job was when they told her to rehire the engineer that resigned. She did not do as she was told that time and she did not blink. I would assume that means she could take the job or leave it.
6:29 I agree with much of what you say. But the problems at Parks and Rec were not about a clerk. The problems were caused by mismanagement by DPW, Mr Gene Hayes. Now Mary did nothing about that. Perhaps that's another part of this problem. Parks and Rec was under DPW. It was a DPW failure. If the City Manager thinks the leadership of DPW is acceptable, I'd say it certainly is time for her to go.
So now we will get to look forward to another search for a city leader..remember the attempts to find a city fire chief? The new person may or may not have the interests of the city at the forefront,while Mrs Corriveau has been here a long time and is established in the community.Mayor Graham said he found out about the resolution not to offer continuation of employment five minutes before the start of the meeting.Sounds like they(the other three)are trying to sneak a fastball by him and Ms Macaluso and the public.Maybe she is not the ideal communicator to the whole council,but remember it takes two to tango,and communication and respect go both ways..
The city manager doesn't work for the council anymore than the owner of a restaurant works for you when you are a customer. Give him too much shi% and he will close the doors and wait for a more classy customer to come back in the summer. these three lawmakers are just rude unrealistic demanding customers.
Take a good look at the 3 who were involved in this move, and you can see that it was totally personality driven.
The DPW has been mis-managed for years, Why do we pay someone to run the airport when we dont own it??
So since people think it's important and fair to point out the 2 (successful?) business owners voted for Mary, should it be fair to point out that those married (at one time) with families voted against? I also think a review rating of 3.5 out of 5 means 70%. How's that translate to letter grades? I think it's a C...
Hopefully when a new manager comes in they will see how mismanaged DPW is and send Mr. Hayes down the (bumpy, snowcovered) road! He should have been relieved of his duties many years ago.
La-La boy...being able to run a business translates to being able to run the city. But being able to start a family just translates to mean you made it through puberty. Try to keep up.
Keep Mary Corriveau on the job; she has done well thru the good, as well as, the not-so-good. She purely has the city's interest at heart. Two of council who voted in favor of this resolution, remember the past election, exchanging jabs,he said,she said, I don't remember said? Sounds like they have a communication problem;Let alone, making sound reasonable decisions.
Anon 7:19.. So how about Ross Perot, or Tom Golisano. By your account, they should have been elected as leaders of country and state.
Many people have asked "where is the accountability?" Which, there hasn't, been.. so 3 members of the Council started at the top and put the rest on notice...
Or Jeff Smith is applying "his leadership". 26 year employee or not, if your not doing to job why keep you? Everyone points that Mary helps Watertown grow and update, many of those updates came with added cost and unintended consequences. Public square was way over budget and water lines weren't correct. Now we can argue over who's fault it is, but there has to be some accountability.
I do agree that it came about in a rather sneaky fashion, but if "they" have a plan in place I'm curious to see (how) it works out.
Of course Perot and Golisano would make excellent leaders of country and state. Why wouldn't they? But the manager is not the leader, she is the manager, so apples and oranges.
Roxy is a democrat so she isn't supposed to ax people like evil businessman republicans. If Marry is deemed inept then the best thing to do is offer her the old job back that she was supposedly great at.
If they wanted to put her on notice then they could have done that with specific instructions. Something such as, "if you don't do a, b and c then we will be inclined not to renew your contract.But instead they just said they were giving notice.
But it still all comes down to the fact they cannot find anyone to do the job better.
P.S. Moore, I realize you have sand in your anus because your crappy band got put in the middle of things and turned down by the city. But that was the doing of Marry in conjunction with the lawmakers. so let it go.
Hey LA why wernt the Water Lines Correct? Wrong Material,To short, installed wrong?
Post a Comment