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HomeMy WebLinkAbout05-21-88 WS e e e MINUTES OF THE CITY COMMISSION WORKSHOP HELD ON SATURDAY, MAY 21, 1988 CALL TO ORDER: 1:05 P.M. PRESENT: Mayor Ison; Commissioners Bateman, Dabbs, Hager, and Johnson; City Manager Ryan; City Attorney Rosenthal: and Assistant to the City Manager Resnik. DISCUSSION ON PROPOSED PERFORMANCE EVALUATION FOR CITY MANAGER AND STATE OF THE CITY Mayor Ison opened the session and asked the Commission what their suggestions were for how to conduct the Workshop. Commissioner Bateman said he had no particular format to suggest and asked the other Commissioners what ideas they had. Commissioner Dabbs said he did not like the evaluation form that was included in their packet of information because it was not specific. He said he felt there needed to be some specific goals and obJectives for the City Manager. Commissioner Dabbs said it appeared that he had not had much luck in communicating with City Manager Ryan. He said that maybe he was the only one who felt that the City Manager had made some mistakes in management. He said he had tried to relay that to the City Manager. Commissioner Dabbs then asked if they were to look first at the form of the evaluation or at the "State of the City". Commissioner Dabbs said that part of his problem for several months was that policy was being set by the City Manager. He said he placed the blame for the problems with Plantation Sysco and the Bowness Road proJect on the City Manager along with the City's Consulting Engineer. On Bowness Road, Commissioner Dabbs said there were no intersection improvements slated as. yet for other areas nearby. He said issues such as this made him feel that for the amount of money being paid to the City Manager and the City's Consulting Engineer, the City was not getting its money's worth. Commissioner Dabbs also stated that it appeared at times that the City Manager conversed with attorneys for other parties moreso than with the City's firm. Commissioner Dabbs said the Commission had asked that the City Manager hire an Associate Planner as well as an Engineer. He said the City Manager requested an assistant and was told to hire someone. Commissioner Dabbs said the City Manager did not hire someone, but took a secretary and promoted her -- someone with no government experience. Commissioner Dabbs then asked Mayor Ison whether the Commission should be focusing on substance or form. Mayor Ison replied both. Commissioner Dabbs said the Sentinel's reporter asked him recently about a certain comment that the City Manager made. The reporter said in speaking with City Manager Ryan, the City Manager said he had moved the Planning 1 . e e Page 2 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 Department downstairs at City Hall to "teach the boy a lesson". Commissioner Dabbs asked City Manager Ryan if he did indeed make that comment. Commissioner Dabbs also asked City Manager Ryan about the hiring of the additional Planner for the Planning Department. City Manager Ryan said that he had delegated the task of hiring an additional Associate Planner to Planner Wagner. City Manager Ryan said the task never got handled but that he had since taken charge of it and that he had handled it and the new person would be starting work on June 6. Commissioner Johnson said he was told by Planner Wagner that the City Manager told him not to hire anyone. City Manager Ryan said Planner Wagner did finally advertise the position in the newspaper and that he was never told not to hire someone. City Manager Ryan said he was waiting to see how long it would take for Planner Wagner to hire someone to look at his management style. Commissioner Dabbs again asked City Manager Ryan if he had made the comment of "teaching the boy a lesson". City Manager Ryan said he did not recall making that statement. Commissioner Bateman said he had a phone conversation with City Manager Ryan and the topic of moving offices at City Hall carne up. When City Manager Ryan said the Planning Department had been moved downstairs, Commissioner Bateman asked why. Commissioner Bateman said the City Manager replied "to teach Russ (Planner Wagner) a lesson". Commissioner Bateman said he told City Manager Ryan he did not like to hear those things. He also said he kept out of the issue much the same way he kept out a similar problem that arose some time ago in the Building Department because he felt it was an employee relations matter. Commissioner Bateman said he was not only upset about the City Planner issue but there were other things as well. He mentioned that when the City Manager was out of town at a conference last week, City Clerk Catron was assigned responsibilities in his absence. Commissioner Bateman said the City needs an Assistant City Manager and that Assistant to the City Manager Resnik was hired more to alleviate a secretarial problem. Commissioner Bateman also said he wanted the City to hire a City Engineer/Public Works Director to cut down on costs incurred by the City using consultants. Commissioner Bateman said it appeared that the City Engineer was going to spend a lot of time on planning. Commissioner Bateman questioned whether he was qualified to do all that. Commissioner Bateman said his comments had nothing to do with Planner Wagner1s resignation. Commissioner Bateman said if Planner Wagner walked back in and said he would remain with the City 2 . Page 3 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 under certain conditions, he would vote against it because he :felt a:fter such a "divorce", any reconciliation would not allow people to work together as they should. Commissioner Bateman said he was more concerned about the City Manager's comments at a Sta:ff Meeting that no one was to talk to Commissioners. Commissioner Bateman said he also heard that City Manager Ryan said in a Staff Meeting that he was the City Manager and he runs the City. Commissioner Bateman said he was not going to ask City Manager Ryan to comment on those statements, he only hoped that the City Manager and the Commission could get things cleared up. e Commissioner Bateman said if he wanted to talk to supervisors or anyone o:f their employees, he wanted to be able to do so. He said if there was some question on a matter, he would be happy to go to City Manager Ryan or Assistant to the City Manager Resnik, but not always. He said the City also needed a Public Works Director who could spend more time with the departments. For example, Commissioner Bateman said recently a problem with a sanitation truck resulted from poor Judgement by the Shop Department. He said the Sanitation Department had been praised by residents in the past, but that this sort o:f thing could change that and that a Public Works Director could make sure the City had competent people on sta:ff. Commissioner Bateman said the Commission needed to solve issues such as these but without "childish antics about who's boss". Commissioner Johnson said that this was a professional system and the Commission needed to know if they had the professional people to do the Job. He said they did not have the sewer acquisition to fall back on anymore as the reason for everything. He stressed that the situation was not good where he could not ask a question of an employee. e Commissioner Hager said the conversing being done was a good thing because it meant that the Commission had the City's best interest at heart. He said the Planner's resignation came upon the City quickly and that the City did not have much time to work and that might be the cause of some o:f this. Commissioner Hager said he had not had any staff members tell him that they were not allowed to speak with him and if he did he would have went to the City Manager immediately to solve the problem. He said as far as the City Manager promoting a secretary, Commissioner Hager would leave that up to the discretion of the City Manager. Commissioner Hager said he had worked with five City Managers and that some were bad and some were good but he thought that the City had a good one now. He said when the Commission hired the 3 e Page 4 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 City Manager there were about 110 to 120 applicants and that each Commission member agreed on three of the finalists who came before the Commission. Commissioner Hager said when the Commission hired City Manager Ryan, he thought they hired someone who could run the City and he still felt that way. Commissioner Hager said he would not liked to have been in City Manager Ryan's place during the sewer acquisition. He said the City was fortunate to have City Manager Ryan on their side. He said he felt that some things would likely fall through the cracks because of the sewer acquisition. e Commissioner Hager said he had been through this process several times but that he had never left a meeting angry. He said the Commission had disagreed in the past, but that they had always acted professionally and he was proud of that. Commissioner Hager said the City had some good managers and some not so good managers and he thought that the present one was probably the best one yet. He said Ocoee was one of the fastest growing cities in the area and that the City Manager had done a good Job handling all the issues surrounding the growth. Commissioner Dabbs asked if that would not be a good reason that the City should not have drug its feet in hiring the positions that were allocated. Commissioner Hager said he was not sure that the City had drug its feet. He said he was not sure of the workload of the City Manager and that he would not question the fact that he was probably very busy. Commissioner Hager said he was the only one who had defended the City Manager but yet he felt that no one on the Commission would consider dismissing the City Manager. Commissioner Dabbs and Commissioner Johnson questioned what Commissioner Hager meant by "defending" and "dismissing". Commissioner Johnson said that no one had mentioned anything about dismissing the City Manager. Commissioner Dabbs said he might consider dismissal under certain circumstances. e Commissioner Dabbs also said that many things remained "in the air" in regards to the Prima Vista Utility acquisition. Commissioner Bateman said that the Commission should put that issue behind them. He said he was one of the Commissioners who still had many problems with the acquisition up until the day the Commission voted on it. But, he said, they all voted that day and he did not think it should be a problem now. Commissioner Dabbs said he did think it was a problem. He said he had heard comments about the City Manager and Barry Goodman. City Manager Ryan said that if the Commission felt there was any wrongdoing on his part, then he wanted the State Attorney's Office involved. Commissioner Johnson said he was not going to sit at a meeting until 11 p.m. and wanted 4 e e e Page 5 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 to get to the point, put the issue on the table, and deal with it. He said he did not make any derogatory remarks towards the City Manager but was commenting on certain things he wanted to see changed or improved. Commissioner Bateman disagreed somewhat. He said there were a lot oz important things being said. City Manager Ryan said he would not deal with any issue involving Barry Goodman because oz the rumors. He stated that he worked zor the zive Commission members, but that he had a duty to represent all City citizens, even the corporate citizens. Commissioner Bateman said he had no problem with City Manager Ryan dealing with Barry Goodman. He said he believed one could be nice to people without giving of the City's coffers. Commissioner Dabbs said he was concerned with the things he was reading in the DRC (Development Review Committee) minutes. He asked why some issues went meeting after meeting without anything being resolved. He asked what the City had done to get the Consulting Engineer working on these problems. Commissioner Dabbs said it concerned him that things hang week after week after week. He said someone needed to get someone going. . or reallocate duties. City Manager Ryan said he had continuing conversations with Consulting Engineer Kelley about the ongoing proJects but felt his efzorts were unsuccesszul. Commissioner Dabbs said that the City Manager needed to let the Commission know iz he was having problems with a consultant. City Manager Ryan said he had shared his frustrations with the Commission. Commissioner Bateman said there were ways oz dealing with the consultant. He said he had seen the May 2 letter from the City Manager to City Consultants regarding the establishment of a time log that they would need to keep in order to verizy the time they were spending on various issues. Commissioner Bateman said that was a good thing to implement, but that it was not enough to Just account zor their time. He said they also had to have some deadlines set for them. Commissioner Bateman said he had been able to deal with the City Manager one-on-one to his satisfaction. He said there were a zew specifics that he had to bring to the City Manager's attention regarding the poor road conditions on White Road and the possibility oz getting a police ozzicer to help where construction was taking place and that he had still not seen any efforts on these matters. Commissioner Johnson said he had a concern that when he talked with certain Developers they would tell him that they had made a deal with the Mayor and the City Manager. He said 5 e Page 6 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 e he was also concerned that when he was asked to vote on certain things, he was either hearing about it for the first time, or it was totally different than what he thought was going to be presented to him. Commissioner Johnson said for example there was supposedly a letter sent to the City regarding the Belmere proJect and the sewer capacity they were looking for. He said he had never seen the letter but that maybe if he had, it would have changed his vote. Commissioner Bateman said that the Belmere issue needs a separate Workshop to discuss the issue of the City's annexation agreements with Windermere and Orange County. He said he was in favor of annexation but only if Windermere and Orange County were in favor of it. Commissioner Johnson agreed. He said that he felt there was not enough information communicated to the Commissioners on issues such as this. He said he had a conversation with the City Manager about the Belmere ProJect and City Manager Ryan told him he had Just made a deal with Orange County. Commissioner Johnson said he told the City Manager that the Commission had not instructed him to do that. City Manager Ryan said the only "deal" he made was that Orange County said they would consider the water territory agreement if the City would consider the Belmere proJect. Mayor Ison said he wanted to restate the areas of common ground. He said the points had already been made in regards to the Assistant City Manager position. He also said that he had known some of the Staff members longer than he had known the City Manager and he wanted conversations between he and the employees to continue. Mayor Ison said the Commission had the right to call someone and ask a question, not necessarily to direct them to do things. Mayor Ison also said that the City Manager should attend all DRC Meetings or those meetings should be postponed until the City Manager could fit them into his schedule. He stated that the City Manager should provide more on-the-Job supervision. The Mayor said that the City had good workers who were also good citizens but that they needed more hands on supervision. He said the citizens of Ocoee were expecting more of the City employees than ever before. e Mayor Ison said the City had a strong City Manager in the Charter and that the City Manager was to implement policy and to take potential policy decisions to the Commission for formal votes. He said the Commission determined policy and the City Manager carried out whatever vote the Commission made. Mayor Ison said he was disappointed that the Commission had to call in problems on White Road and other similar problems. He asked why the department supervisors 6 e Page 7 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 were not taking these emphasized that it was important to the citizens. matters into their own hands and those things that were really The Mayor also said that any information from other governments sent to the City of Ocoee should be copied to the Commission as soon as possible. He said he expected the City Manager to be in Ocoee 90 percent of the time on the weekends and that the City Manager should attend all City and civic activities such as the Lion's Fun Day and the Orange Games that Jim Beech ran last weekend. The Mayor said that all Commission members should really make an effort to attend all of these functions. e Mayor Ison said the City Manager should also belong to at least one civic organization and that he should attend all its meetings and become involved in any activities it puts on. The Mayor said City Manager Ryan should also be involved in a Speaker's Bureau and that he should make a point to speak to other civic organizations. He also said the City Manager should notify the Commission if he finds it necessary to be away from Ocoee and that he should only attend one City Manager function away from the City during the year. In reference to the hiring and firing of employees, the Mayor said the Commission could not direct the City Manager by Charter to specifically hire or fire someone but that they could probably tell the City Manager their feelings about such issues. Mayor Ison said that after what happened at the Commission Meeting on Tuesday night, he would probably go back to Ocala if he were the new City Engineer after listening to the Mayor's comments. He said he was frustrated with several things and probably should not have said what he did and that that only showed that everyone had an area where improvements could be made. Commissioner Dabbs said that he had heard that the new City Engineer <Dennis Finch) might still return to Ocala. He said he had heard rumors and he asked the City Manager if he knew anything about it. City Manager Ryan said he was not aware of anything to substantiate that rumor and that he had not had any conversation with Engineer Finch about the possibility o~ returning to Ocala. e Mayor Ison said the Commission needed to be specific of any comments they made in reference to Barry Goodman and the City Manager. He also stated that City Manager Ryan should spend more of his lunch time with employees rather than other businessman. He also said the City Manager needed to provide the Commission with advance notice if he planned on taking 7 . Page 8 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 any vacation time. Commissioner Bateman said this would not be so crutial if there was an Assistant City Manager since that person could immediately take over when the City Manager was away. City Manager Ryan said he did not agree with that but would address that matter when it was his turn to speak. Mayor Ison said he thought the City Manager would hire an Assistant City Manager to help out more with management. Commissioner Johnson agreed. City Manager Ryan said that when he asked for an assistant he provided a Job description and a pay scale. He said neither of those indicated that he wanted to hire an Assistant City Manager and he questioned why the Commission did not raise the issue then. He said he thought he was clear as to what he was looking for. Mayor Ison said he felt the City Manager needed a hands-on assistant that would be tough enough to manage the staff and to negotiate with developers. City Manager Ryan said he would place the matter on the next agenda and would provide a Job description and a pay scale that would be acceptable. e Commissioner Dabbs restated that the City Manager needed to let the Commission know if the Consulting Engineer was not doing the Job and that if necessary to fire him. City Manager Ryan said he was not in a position to fire a consultant and that was up to the Commission. He said he felt that he had tried to work with PEC <Professional Engineering Consultants) and had even established a regular weekly session with Consulting Engineer Kelley to try to get some proJects moving. e Commissioner Bateman said there were also some housekeeping issues that needed to be dealt with. He said on a scale of 1 to 10 he would give the City's filing system an 11 or 12. Commissioner Bateman said that particularly with all the new developments, the City needed to establish a good system. He also said minutes of meetings should be a priority item and they should be given to the Mayor and Commissioners as soon as possible rather than waiting for the packets. Commissioner Bateman also suggested that excerps from those minutes should go to the different departments which are mentioned so they would know what direction the Commission wanted them to go on certain matters. Mayor Ison said that the development files should be computerized and Staff should be able to use the computerized system to print out the status of a given proJect at any given time. Mayor Ison said that Finance Director Poston was a great person but that he felt the City was not getting enough financial information out of his department. He said he had not received any printout summaries indicating where the City stood with regards to budgetary matters and that the City was almost 8 e Page '3 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 already into the final quarter. Mayor Ison also asked the City Manager about a report on the status of the wastewater department. City Manager Ryan said that Staff had planned on a six month status report but that he would get one ready as soon as possible. Mayor Ison said the Commission also needed to know about all money transfers and to what funds the money was coming and going. Commissioner Bateman said on the issue of money and the wastewater facility, that the City was owed money by a particular hotel. He said he thought it was somewhere between $40,000-50,000. He directed the City Manager to collect the money. Mayor Ison said the actual amount he thought was $52,000. City Manager Ryan said the amount of fees owed by the West Orlando Holiday Inn was more in the neighborhood of $345,000 and that the City was already in the process of collecting the money. City Attorney Rosenthal said that Attorney Woodson had spoken with the Holiday Inn recently on the matter and was working on getting the problem resolved. e Mayor Ison said the City~s Purchasing Agent position should not be considered a full-time position and that the Commission had brought this issue to the City Manager in the past. City Manager Ryan said that the Purchasing Agent~s purchasing duties were part-time and that the position was also used to work on code enforcement matters. Mayor Ison said the City needed to be recognized as a stable, rational government. He said he saw this meeting as a beginning point and asked the Commission if they thought it would be a good idea to complete the evaluation form individually on a monthly basis and turn it in to the City Manager. He also thought that this type of evaluation and "State of the City" session should take place quarterly. Commissioner Bateman said he would not participate in a handwritten evaluation of anyone. He said if he had something to say, he would say it. He said he thought the meeting was needed and that he would participate in another meeting to air any comments. Mayor Ison suggested it was important to establish the dates for these meetings now. e Commissioner Dabbs still felt that the Commission needed to establish a written evaluation, not for style but for substance. City Manager Ryan suggested that the Commission establish goals in the budget and then evaluate the City Manager by whether or not those goals are met. Mayor Ison agreed that something in writing was necessary, but disagreed with the City Manager~s idea because there were too many '3 e e Page 10 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 things in the process that the City Manager would not have any control over. Mayor Ison said the written evaluation would contain comments on the City Manager's quality of work, quantity of work, and timeliness of work. He said he had no problem with completing a monthly form. Commissioner Bateman said if the Commission could come up with a better form, he would take a look at it. Commissioner Dabbs agreed to draft an evaluation form. Mayor Ison said the "State of the City" and City Manager evaluation meetings would take place quarterly, beginning in July. Commissioner Dabbs said he would work on the form and try to get it to the Commission within two to three weeks. City Manager Ryan said he would place the issue of the Assistant City Manager position on the next agenda and that there had been a significant misunderstanding on the position he had requested. On the issue of Commission and Staff relationships, City Manager Ryan said he had never instructed the Staff not to speak with the Mayor and Commissioners. He said he told Staff members that if they felt uncomfortable with something, they could ask the Commissioner to speak with the City Manager. City Manager Ryan said he would attend all future DRC Meetings but that he would not deal with any issue involving Barry Goodman. Commissioner Bateman said he had a problem with that. Mayor Ison said the comments made earlier were Just to express an area of concern and not to accuse the City Manager of any wrongdoing. City Manager Ryan said he would take the comments as that. City Manager Ryan said he started more hands-on supervision about six months ago and that that was probably the reason for any comments from department heads. He said he had been putting more pressure on them and that the Commission would probably be getting a sense of that. As far as financial matters were concerned, the City Manager said he did not make decisions on money and that anything that he had a question about would go to the Commission for approval. City Manager Ryan said he would attend city-wide functions but that he would respectfully decline to Join a civic organization so as not to upset other clubs. He said he would Join a speaker's bureau. Mayor Ison disagreed with City Manager Ryan on the issue of Joining a civic organization. He said members of the Commission were in organizations, yet they still supported other groups and that 4It had never been a problem. 10 Page 11 Workshop Session Commission Meeting tit May 21, 1988 City Manager Ryan said he would provide adequate notice of times where he would be out of town and that he would take care of the filing system and the minutes immediately. He said he had directed Staff to establish a development file and list of all proJects and their status. He said the assignment had not been completed and he would follow up on it. City Manager Ryan said that the DRC minutes were not done until he insisted and that he had met with much resistence from Staff on having to do them, but that they had proved very helpful a number of times. City Manager Ryan said he would discuss the issue of Staff/Commission relationships at the next Staff Meeting and would begin recording Staff Meetings. Commissioner Dabbs said he asked Engineer Finch about the rumors of him possibly returning to Ocala. Commissioner Dabbs said Engineer Finch told him he was not thinking of it but that he was still in his probationary period. e Commissioner Bateman said he had some business with the West Orange Girl's Club to discuss with the Commission sometime in the near future but he wanted to speak to Attorney Rosenthal about it first. Commissioner Dabbs asked whether or not a ProJect Manager position could be paid out of the money set aside for the Bowness Road proJect so that the City could better monitor the proJect. City Manager Ryan said, informationally, that it could. Mayor Ison said the Commission would meet again in July for another evaluation session and that the Commission could expect to receive a draft of an evaluation form from Commissioner Dabbs within the next few weeks. Commissioner Johnson asked whether or not it would include a contract. City Manager Ryan said he already had a contract. Commissioner Johnson said he did not remember formally adopting one. (Assistant to the City Manager Resnik researched the minutes for August 1987. The minutes stated that a revised form of the contract proposed by Commissioner Johnson in August 1987 was passed unanimously by the Commission in August 1987.) There was still some question as to the contract and City Attorney Rosenthal was directed to look into it. City Manager Ryan requested that the City Attorney report back on whether the contract exists or not. . Mayor Ison asked if there were any other Commission comments regarding the "State of the City". There was some discussion on what to do about traffic congestion downtown and on 11 . e e Page 12 Workshop Session Commission Meeting May 21, 1988 Bowness Road. There was also mention of Clark Road and Impact Fees. Mayor Ison told the City Manager that the Commission wanted to get moving on Clark Road. Commissioner Bateman suggested that whomever was chosen to design the road drive through Metro West to see how they laid out the roads. Mayor Ison said he had a conversation with a County Commissioner about the possibility of the mutual sharing of impact fees. He used Rose Hill as an example to state that even though those residents impact Ocoee roads, the City did not receive any impact fees from the County. Mayor Ison said the County could look for similar assistance if Ocoee annexed the Belmere property and that subdivision would have an impact on the County. Mayor Ison said he also wanted to propose a one-day Special Session to discuss four maJor items: water, wastewater, drainage, and transportation. It was decided that the session would take place on Thursday, June 23, starting at 8:30 a.m. Commissioner Dabbs asked how the Comprehensive Plan would be affected with the Planning Department resignations. City Manager Ryan said that by June 6, there would be two new people starting work to handle the Growth Management Plan and to replace Assistant Planner Rivera and that the Planning process would "not miss a beat". The Commission directed the City Manager to notify PEC that all items to be submitted for the day-long session on June 23 needed to be to the Commission in writing at least one week in advance. City Manager Ryan said he would have all materials two weeks in advance. ADJOURNMENT: 3:55 P.M. .J-IO n JJ _;;;J~------~ MAYOR ATTEST: ------------------------------- ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT RESNIK 12