Minutes - Council - 05/24/2022 - Laserfiche WebLink

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not about picking on a City employee but is saying this can't be happening, Staff can't be text messaging at 1:46 a.m. no matter the reason and she shouldn't have been text messaging with job applicants in the first place. She stated if they had the City Administrator on staff at the time, she would have expected that he could have handled this for them but she didn't feel it was right to put Mr. Hagen in an awkward position being the Interim City Administrator and a job applicant and expect him to take care of this situation because considering the dynamics, it is a little odd. She stated she recommended putting a letter in the employee's file saying that this is what happened. Disparate messages went out to candidates,the communication with job applicants was via text messaging, there was a huge disparity in the time frame. Council doesn't want text messages going out to job applicants in the wee hours of the morning and keep communications during business hours via email which is what it should be going forward and that Administrative Services Director Lasher understands that and that this won't be happening again. She thought it was a reasonable ask to put that in the file and make sure everyone understands this going forward and they don't have this happen again. Mayor Kuzma replied he disagreed. He stated he took offense of Councilmember Howell accusing him of not acting. He stated at the previous meeting the attorney clearly stated five or six times that this did not rise to the level that they are bringing it to. He felt that it was mentioned but it was ended at that point. He stated Ms. Lasher does a great job and he is ashamed that they are putting her through this. He apologized publicly to Ms. Lasher for that because he appreciates everything she does. He stated he doubted there will be any emails or text messages going out in the wee hours of the morning and they didn't need to worry about that. Councilmember Heineman commented this is a mess. He thought they needed to understand that things like this happen, this entire situation happens. It happens in businesses; there are going to be sticky situations that require very nuanced approaches to how they are handled. What is unique to this situation is that it is broadcast all over the City. He stated usually when a situation like this occurs the chain of command will talk to each other, they will solve it, they will squash it and it will be over. He stated this is very unique. He thought former City Administrator Ulrich had a good word when he said patience. He stated he thought patience is very important. Instead of blaming Administrative Services Director Lasher or City Councilmembers they didn't agree with, he will just say they had a very complicated discussion with hundreds of different scenarios of what if they did this, what if they did this. He admitted he didn't have a path forward for Mr. Korin and he did for Brian Hagen. He stated Councilmember Howell wasn't wrong that they were all very confused when they left and then when Mr. Korin wrote the email and Mr. Ulrich wrote the email back it was just a mess. A mess has happened, it is how they deal with these messes. He stated it is very confusing and now they have to move on from it. He stated what he sees is not as performance. He sees if Council has an issue with text messages and with the times they go out, then he suggested a policy or guiding principles could be put in place. He didn't think this was a performance issue. He stated he has gone back and forth on this. He stated he talked to Councilmember Howell and to Administrative Services Director Lasher and what he found was that when they talk to each other, they figure stuff out and they get resolved. Talking comes with patience as Mr. Ulrich stated. He suggested later, at a Work Session, they put forward a policy to say no more texting and with a time constraint and that moving forward they have patience, talk to each other, and communicate because every single member has fallen short on this. He stated he could go down the line and then point ten fingers at himself and say he is just as much to blame City Council/May 24, 2022 Page 15 of 21