Anton takes City Hall concerns to the airwaves
Tensions between some city councilors and City Manager Joe Gray escalated Thursday when Councilor John Anton criticized Gray on a radio talk show.
Anton told WMPG's Thursday morning host Steve Hirshon that he's losing patience with the lack of cooperation from city workers and blames Gray for those lapses. Anton said Gray is responsible for managing city workers and that he is "not sure he supports that management."
Reached later in the day Thursday, Anton insisted he wasn't calling for Gray to be fired.
"The timeliness and quality of staff engagement with issues raised by the council is inconsistent at best, and I would like to see the bar raised on that," Anton said Thursday afternoon. "Joe is where i look for accountability on that."
Anton is the latest elected official to publicly chastise Gray and city staff for slow turnaround on requests made by councilors. Earlier this month, Councilor Dan Skolnik rebuked Gray in front of more than 100 people at a Public Safety Committee meeting after Gray apparently told Skolnik he would be there then failed to show up.
Skolnik has also been critical of Gray and several other city employees for refusing to provide information he sought over several weeks. Privately, other councilors have expressed frustration about feet-dragging from city workers.
As tension mounted in recent weeks between Skolnik and city officials, including Gray, City Attorney Gary Wood and Police Chief James Craig, Mayor Jill Duson convened private City Hall meetings to let all parties to bury the hatchet. Although the Mayor says she chastened Skolnik for losing his temper with staff, she also said city workers need to respect the council process.
Picking up on that thread, Anton suggested the council could start holding staff more accountable.
"If one of us, who has been elected by the citizens, if we asked something of staff, you would think staff would do it as long as it was within reason..." Anton said on WMPG. "In practice, I'm not sure it works out that way."
"How come?" Hirshon wondered.
"I'm not sure how come," Anton responded, "except that it doesn't always happen."
When working with staff, Anton says, he tries to "listen and understand the environment they are working in," even though he says many of the challenges they have "shouldn't be challenges."
"A lot of the people who work at City Hall are great," said Anton, whose at-large council district includes the entire city. "But they would be greater if they weren't encumbered by the 19th century management system at work over there."
City Spokesperson Nicole Clegg declined to comment on Anton's remarks. "As I did not hear the interview, I don't think it would be appropriate to comment," she said in an email.
The city's charter says the city manager, city attorney and city clerk serve at the will of the city council. Although the council doesn't have any authority over department heads or their subordinates, these three "at-will" positions that report to the council are responsible for these lower-level staffers.
Technically, the "at-will" employees could be fired at any time if a majority of councilors voted to do so.
"But by virtue of not doing that ... the council endorses the current management, or at least a majority of them do," Anton told Hirshon.
Between talking city politics on the radio program, Anton cracked jokes -- often at his own expense -- and talked briefly about his two daughters. Apparently, he even requested a song by the British post-punk band "Gang of Four."
In spite of his complaints about Gray's management, Anton says he's not ready to fire him. Standard practice allows city employees to review their "at-will" employees each year and discuss any problems at that time. When that time comes, Anton says he'll be ready for a conversation.
"I would want to have a candid discussion about expectations and hold him and other hires accountable to those expectations. If we aren't able to resolve that, then I would want to part company," he said.
