At tonight's City Council meeting, they tabled a motion to pass an ordinance for a long awaited personnel policy manual for City workers. This was a definite victory for me. I have been critical of a couple of lines in the City's AIMs ( sort of a personnel guide), and actually resident in the City's Charter. Under the guise of ethics, and the subheading of political activity, it purports to say that employees of the City cannot actively campaign for a city position, even running for a position themself. I have challenged not only the literal interpretation of this, but also its constitutionality. The actual language is unclear, and the terms are nowhere defined. Further, this clause has been ignored in the past quite a few times. Apparently, only the Ethics Board has a vote on defining it, and they only define if asked in writing. Even the City's Counsel wouldn't touch this one.
Council first tried to alter the words, or remove the offending clause, or the whole section on Conflicts of Interest, and eventually just decided to table the whole Personnel Manual. It was rumored, and council members were concerned, that the passing of this ordinance would immediately allow the Mayor to separate me from my job. Council was concerned, and seemed to establish their belief that no matter what they did, I would be grandfathered in to the pre policy days, despite the existence of the same language in the City's AIM and its charter. Apparently by changing the proposed text in the manual, they would make the case for it being changed in the original charter and the Aim regulation. With no clear way to alter the words, or delete just a few, or something they elected to postpone the whole deal.
This means I can keep my job, even after I win the Primary! This is good news!
Thank you, Council, for taking the time to think, and to protect me from a Mayor who would love to destroy me.
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