Defensive response to grand jury report by South Tahoe
By Kathryn Reed
South Lake Tahoe City Council members had almost nothing to say before the city’s response to the scathing grand jury report was voted on. The written response by City Manager Dave Jinkens agrees with little that the independent panel chastised the city about and instead gives a flimsy defense to many accusations.
Before Councilman Bill Crawford had to leave the July 27special council meeting, he said he considered the report and response to be the same – “vague.”
The vote was 3-1 to accept the response as written by Jinkens and prepared with City Attorney Pat Enright. City Councilman Jerry Birdwell was the dissenting vote, though he said nothing at the meeting.
Afterward he told Lake Tahoe News, “No. 1, I think the grand jury report was correct. I saw no need to answer and argue about the report. I accept the report and as I have previously stated, I take it as constructive criticism and that we need to do better.”
He said he is trying to do what he can to make the council run as smoothly as possible. Birdwell points to his stance on the issues involving Johnny Poland, the city cop who successfully fought his termination case, and former City Attorney Jacqueline Mittelstadt, who resigned after the city tried to fire her, as proof he was right.
Birdwell is good with how he is conducting himself on the council, but agrees with the grand jury there that there is plenty of room for improvement.
Jinkens read part of his staff report into the record on Tuesday, saying, “I am proud of the work of city government as a whole and city employees to deliver efficient, effective and a high quality of service to the people of South Lake Tahoe each and every day of the year. Employees are our greatest resource and we must work with them and the community in a positive and constructive manner to address the pressing needs of our community.”
Click on response to read the city’s unedited and therefore not quite final version to what it will submit regarding the 2010 El Dorado County Grand Jury report.
The response defends the reimbursement for outside legal counsel to Councilman Bruce Grego, even though the grand jury questions it.
In the 20-page response LTN learned “the city manager is ‘technically’ the director of finance” and the city manager is the personnel officer.
It addresses the nepotism issue by giving only estimates of how many married couples work in the city (seven) and how many family members (eight) work for the city. This doesn’t include council and commission members.
Even with 30 of the 195 full-time employees related, this would represent more than 15 percent of the workforce having a perceived conflict. And that’s just the number the city admits to. It doesn’t include those who are engaged or living together.
The city’s response says, “The statement of the grand jury gives insufficient information to determine if alleged concerns by complaining parties are on a city-wide basis or in one or more city departments. In order to properly evaluate this statement, more information is needed and requested about the situation.”
But the city won’t reveal to Lake Tahoe News who all is related by blood and marriage between full-time and part-time employees, council members and commissioners, and only gives estimates in its response. How can the city know if there is problem, if it doesn’t know who is related and therefore who is reporting to whom?
Instead of addressing the issue internally, it has put the onus back on the grand jury – a body that is seated for one year.
This theory seems to contradict a segment of the city’s response under “overview and comments” that says, “The City Council, city manager, city attorney and all department heads have a duty to ensure that the workplace is productive and devoid of illegal harassment and discrimination of any kind.”
While that statement is a fact, many city workers who have spoken to Lake Tahoe News say it is not a policy that is practiced.
The response in another section further says, “The city will review within the next six months its existing nepotism policies in the personnel rule and MOU from a legal perspective and with representatives of recognized employee associations to determine if changes are needed and the city manager will report his findings to the City Council.”
Considering there will be a new city manager in 10 days and the council will be changing by at least 40 percent in five months, it’s hard to know if there will be follow through on the above statement.
At one point the grand jury calls the council “bush league”. To this the response begins, “The city is unfamiliar with the term ‘bush league’.”
The 1982 dictionary at the offices of Lake Tahoe News defines “bush-league’” as, “of or pertaining to a bush league; mediocre; second-rate.”
The arrogance of Lovell, Cole and Grego are what you would expect from 18th century European royalty. Yet, there are still citizens in town who think Lovell is doing a good job. Amazing.
Bush League-where you were sent if you were not professional.
We would be wise to listen to the Grand Jury Report. Apathy is very destructive, we are being given a chance to change….speak up….vote….let’s make our city, a city to be proud of. A nice place to visit. Wonderful!
Or…we could be like Bell, CA Hide our heads in the sand, pay very dearly for services rendered. Can you imagine what retirement benefits that town will have to pay on upper management earnings of 1.6 million dollars per year! It just goes goes on and on. The people of Bell did not raise the alarm. It was raised for them. We have a chance to change things for the better. Pay attention, become involved.
I, for one, would like to see things finished before new things are started. I heard about our “Ta-hole” while getting my hair cut in Santa Rosa…it was not good. I could not blame them for not wanting to visit our end of the lake, I don’t like looking at it either.
Leadership is a privilege and a trust, the Grand Jury needs to be listened to.
“The city is unfamiliar with the term ‘bush league’.” Are they kidding? By their admission the council confirms the grand jury’s observation.
A flimsy, insufficient, and deficient response, blessed by 3 house mice, is par for the course.
The response from the city was as expected, defensive and in denial. It confirms a behavior we have seen from the city manager, the council and now the city attorney. It is a bunker mentality that says everyone else is wrong and were right and reflects a self perception of “we can do no wrong” therefore Grand Jury, you must be wrong. It’s an ego centric view that has gotten this council and city manager in trouble time after time be it the Poland case, the Mittelstadt case whatever. Hubris at it’s worst.
What I and most other citizens would have liked to have seen is a positive response acknowledging mistakes and laying out a positive plan to fix the problems and move the community forward. Instead we get “the dog ate my home work” “it’s the other guys fault” response. It’s a response that is unprofessional and reflects poorly on the community and is to say the least “bush league”.
Is the Council and City Mgr so, “In their own world” that they don’t realize a Grand Jury is a group of citizens, not just one individual, who have dedicated a good chunk of time scrutinizing how they function! They have no profit incentive in saying what they say? Oh that’s right, they are in their own world as the Council, City Mgr. and City Government have so many conflicts of interest they can’t comprehend people engaging in actions without their having an ulterior motive!
Hear is how they should’ve responded-We should be making progress in how are City Government functions in that our City Mgr. will soon be leaving! As he is unable to ever answer questions directly, fails to understand that he works for the taxpayer and thus always feels the need to delay, stall and misdirect any inquiries into his actions! We are hopeful our new Mgr. will instead be open, honest and responsive to the taxpayer-those paying his salary.
We are also optimistic that a new Council in a couple months will make our hiring policies clear and open to the public and do everything to make sure the best people are hired for any openings that will also now be made public. Our weird policy of only being able to get City Mgrs. from places far and away, yet stating that relatives of Council and staff are sometimes the only ones qualified to fill certain posts will also try to be explained!
Finally, instead of the current bunker mentality of making sure staff’s jobs are protected and well-paid, we are hopeful a new Council and City Mgr. will try and do something to stimulate the private sector! With an unemployment rate well over the national average AND the averages of CA and NV (which are in the top 5 nationally as is) we realize that we have failed to do anything as a City Government beyond looking after our own narrow self-interests!
Oh yeah, and one last thing. We’ll look up “Bush League” since everyone agrees nothing could describe us better!!
Ultimately the city needs a more professional city council, but the limited number of city residents and the limited pay make this unlikely.
If the items on the Agenda are not for the individual Council members gain, they are not interested or even know what to do next. This has been getting old for some time now. The Grand Jury brings up information regarding what the Council does and does not do and the best they can come up with is, “Oh my, I guess I won’t run for re-election”. Oh yeah, that fixes it.
O’HUM !!! Thought the Grand Jury compared the City Council to George Bush.
Well said, Carl. While a certain amount of defensiveness is to be expected as it is human nature, it would be of great detriment to all citizens to ignore the good work of the Grand Jury. Hopefully the new City Manager will take the Grand Jury’s report to heart, as he has nothing to defend, and take it for the constructive critisism that it is and bring some positive change.