This is Why Part II

This email, above, is an actual email actually sent from an actual commissioner to our previous administrator Jack Brown.

Now, some may consider this sort of a written assessment of an administrator's employee to be routine.  I can say from my perspective I do not believe it to be. In my 13 years of elected public service locally I have NEVER sent such an email to either an administrator or a superintendent--presuming to thrust my own opinion upon the executive about the performance of one of his employees. 

The administrator is charged with hiring, firing, and discipline of employees---not commissioners, not board members.

Can we discuss concerns?  Sure.  Can we ask for information?  Of course.  But essentially calling for termination--and then putting it in writing?  It is intimidation of not only this particular employee of the organization--but also of the administrator.  Should 1/5 of the administrator's boss (the full 5-member BCC) have this unilateral ability?

No.

From the email above--one can easily see that this particular commissioner had a huge problem with this particular employee--but apparently the administrator felt differently.

Perhaps the administrator had spoken to the other four commissioners, and perhaps the other four commissioners strongly supported this individual employee?  Who knows--but the fact that this particular employee remained on staff despite one commissioner's continual negative assessment (s) over time points to that as a possibility.

And therein lies the reason why the administrator supervises and controls staff.  The administrator is much more cognizant of an individual employee's level of expertise, value, performance, and work ethic (as well as a particular employee's  "fit" within the team.) The administrator is the hour by hour, day to day, week to week "supervisor" of employees---not individual commissioners.  Do we as commissioners have close working relationships with employees?---of course!   Can we work together?--absolutely!

But negative assessments are strictly in the wheelhouse of the executive, the administrator, for the obvious reasons as stated above and also as they are enumerated in statute.

Otherwise an organization will hemorrhage and talented staff will run for the exits......Sound familiar?  (This is the impetus for my bringing a badly needed Non-Interference Ordinance)

In this particular instance described in the above email--regrettably--the employee in question


 resigned.

I spoke to this employee about the decision to leave and I was told the particular reasons why this individual made the choice to leave.  "This is not good for me, being attacked is not good for me and for my health, and I won't stay in this environment, I'm leaving."

Incidentally--I thought this individual was one of the sharpest, most squared-away employees we had and I strongly supported this individual (as the administrator did too, apparently).

Now-although this is a public record, I'm purposely redacting identifiable information within this email above so that nobody--especially this employee, this good and decent individual-- has his/her reputation dragged through the mud.  I don't need to name names to illustrate a point, and I won't name names.

The purpose of this post here is simply to illustrate an example of heavy-handedness that was not only verbally communicated, but then subsequently put into writing and sent to the administrator when the verbal incitements from 1/5 of the administrator's boss did not immediately  elicit and foment the desired response from the administrator.  The point is to have readers look at this email and ask themselves if this is a reasonable email.  Is it rational, measured, and professional?