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“I’m the administrator of the city,” said Diaz, backed by his own personal attorney — not hired by the city — who said that he had complete purview over the mayor’s staff as of a recent resolution she read over and over and over again. And she said the department heads were mayor’s staff because he had meetings with them? Really? Really? Meetings? No way that flies. Ladra’s covered dozens of municipalities over more than two decades and never has the “mayor’s staff” included the department heads. With that argument, it could also include every single employee under those department heads. In fact, it’s usually limited to those people in the mayor’s office budget: secretaries, assistants, a chief of staff, maybe a sergeant at arms.
But the city attorney is the one who mentioned that department heads, nonetheless, do work at the will of the mayor. Maybe Diaz should be represented by him. His attorney, Susan Norton, seemed to fumble a little, or a lot, and ramble about things that seemed irrelevant. Like some employee handbook that neither the city attorney nor the city clerk had ever seen before, and which would have been irrelevant anyway if the code cited by the attorney for the four department heads, Gary Costales, exists because it would trump. And like the reasons that the mayor had come up with for the firings after the fact (read: an opportunity to drag the ex employees through the mud). If these were the real reasons, independently and individually, that he had three weeks ago for each employee, he should have stated them then. Independently. Individually.
In writing, as apparently the city code provides, according to the attorney for the four department heads, Costales, who said it was too early to tell but seems willing to go to court with this.
Related story: Sweetwater Mayor fires almost everyone for ‘clean house’
The mayor’s position, backed by his attorney, and by the city attorney who said the department heads are at will employees, is that he didn’t have to give a reason. He had legitimate reasons, he says: The incompetence and negligence of some workers, the driving habits of another, the arrest record, etc. He just didn’t have to state them, so he didn’t.
But, the problem is, first, that he knew about these reasons months ago — but waited for what exactly? — and, second, that he didn’t just say “I don’t need no reason.” Instead, the mayor stated other, apparently different reasons and fired them in a group, like they were a gang of conspirators that needed to be weeded out. He went on several TV shows and had interviews with other media about his “cleaning house” and it was always intimated that these were people who were left over from the previous and admittedly tainted administration under former and arrested Mayor Manny “Maraña” Maroño.
And maybe they should have been fired. I mean, it stands to reason that some of these people were, at best, bad at their jobs if they didn’t catch all the crap that apparently was going on under their noses (well, and also the commissioners’). At worst, they were in on it. Maybe the firings are just. And maybe Diaz — who repeatedly claims to have long conversations with the federal authorities who are still investigating Maroño’s muck — knows more than we do. Maybe he truly is just un guajiro humilde who doesn’t really know what he is doing and is flying by the seat of his pants.
Because, if there are truly legitimate reasons why not document everything and just get it right? What’s the down side to playing it so that they can’t accuse you of political grandstanding?
Nevermind what the code says or the employee handbook, Mr. Mayor. Your city has been under scrutiny for months since your one-time hermano — and don’t give me any of that “we weren’t friends” story because we both know too many people who say differently — was popped for just one of the multiple grafts he is suspected of, the FBI has practically set up shop at City Hall, you still have no idea at all (really?) about how much money the city has or where it is (more on that later), your police department looks like a den of delincuentes posing for a police brutality awareness poster and there has been a revolving door with almost 100 people going through in the 10 months you’ve been in charge.
You’ve really got a lot more cleaning up to do. Ladra is wagging her tail. But let’s be more painstaking about it.
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