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

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as everyone and it is true. He stated this is not abnormal and anyone who wants to say the City Council doesn't know what they are doing, no this happens. He gave the example of board rooms, stating this stuff happens and it's okay, it's just not televised. He stated that it is okay, it happened, but what is not okay is that it continues to happen the way that it is happening. He suggested putting together another policy to guide how to address notifying applicants. He stated they could all admit this is not the perfect scenario and they all want to go forward. He suggested they all stop yelling at each other and the Staff and admit that it is each of their fault or blame him if that is what it takes to move forward. He stated there is a discussion coming up about how to be productive and how to work together as a team which what they need to be focused on. He asked for respective discussion if it continues. Mayor Kuzma commented he couldn't agree with Councilmember Heineman more. Councilmember Howell replied it was unfortunate that Councilmember Heineman was characterizing and trying to bring up issues that could turn into major issues if it is a common practice in the City with hiring as yelling at employees. She stated all she did last meeting is send an email asking that these be sent to all the Councilmembers so hopefully the Mayor could engage it and bring a solution to the table. Tonight she brought forward that she didn't want to see going forward that they have text messages at two in the morning or communicating via text messages with job applicants. She didn't think that was a big ask. She stated if they are going to have a professional image in the City she didn't think asking that the HR Manager don't do those things is a big ask. She stated they are limited and they had to have it in this format which was tricky. She stated it would have been nice to have it in a discussion in a Work Session and it seemed like it couldn't be done that way so they were stuck with this format. That puts everyone in a position of having a very hard discussion in a very public manner. She stated if these things aren't addressed with an employee who should know better and has a lot of years of experience, this is the standard that is being set for the City. She thought it was not a big deal to have a letter stating going forward these things will not happen and she finds it unfortunate that they couldn't come to that conclusion tonight and Councilmember Heineman is accusing people of yelling. Councilmember Heineman replied he wasn't trying to use divisive language so if he said yelling he apologized. He wasn't accusing anyone of yelling he didn't mean that. He stated he didn't find text messages horribly offensive but would agree that the time was incorrect. He agreed it should be addressed but it should be made a policy, not a performance issue. Mayor Kuzma commented they have talked about it enough and he was tired of rehashing it. He asked the Council to move on. City Attorney Knaak interjected they will need to take some action or summary action with respect to this performance review. If it is the determination of the Council that no action or discipline is deemed warranted, he suggested that the Mayor say so and establish that in the record. In addition to that, any additional actions they want to take, for example issues of communications with job applications to be applied to all applications and applications in the future as a matter of policy should be addressed soon. He stated that could be made a part of the motion as well and separated out but he thought that needed to be brought to a conclusion. City Council/May 24, 2022 Page 16 of 21