Get Into It: Mayor And Council Recap (Jan. 24, 2011) — UPDATED
Jan 25, 2011 6:00 - 16 Comments
[Note: This article contains several updates, indicated throughout, as people have sent in corrections to quotations.]
Every week, we at Rockville Central tune into the Mayor and Council meeting and let you know what the highlights were. Here’s what jumped out at me from last night’s meeting. (Note that it is NOT the whole meeting, just what seemed most noteworthy.)
First off, City Manager Scott Ullery had little to report in his allotted time. He turned the microphone over to Assistant City Manager Jenny Kimball who gave an update on the court house.
You might have noticed there is a new screen that’s been installed to cut down on death ray. It’s a temporary measure, there will be a permanent fix later. Building to be occupied in April 2011. Rockville has been preparing — making sure people can reach the court house and know where to park. This includes on-street signage and walking maps for people who have already parked. City staff have also given thought to protecting neighborhood from inappropriate parking, making sure there is restricted parking, etc. Finally, pedestrian safety: Installing signs warning drivers of pedestrians, and changing traffic signal timing so pedestrians have extra time to cross street before any vehicle gets a green light. The state has agree to put “no stopping” signs in front of the court house.
There was a quick recognition of major donors to Rockville’s annual Holiday Drive. Go here to see the list (it’s long and pdf, otherwise I’d just paste it here).
Citizens Forum
- Joe Jordan: Spoke about Agenda Item #13 (see below). Believes Scott Ullery should have not let the issue come to this point. Feels the issue is relevant, as he is the one who feels maligned. Disappointed that it was thought he had not met his obligations as chair of the RedGate task force (by not forwarding the National Golf Foundation report, though he had in fact done so). [UPDATE: Mr. Jordan's actual words were: ""I am the person said to have been 'maligned' by Mr. Ullery." He didn't actually say he WAS "maligned."] [UPDATE 2: Here is the full text of his prepared talk.]
- John Moser: Spoke in memory of Bill Hanna. Brought to mind his efforts at replacing the photo collage of Rockville’s mayors that used to be in the City Hall.
- Margaret Hadley: Expressed her concern over the city’s water main system. Has experienced four water main breaks recently (lives on Harrison Street). The most recent break has been running for four days.
- Donald Hadley: Amplified what his wife (Margaret) said.
- Robin Parks: Representing Bean Bag Catering Company and spoke about the Rockville Rewards program, which supports local nonprofits.
- Alice Von Saunder: Spoke against the use of City funds to “rebrand” Rockville.
- Susan Prince: Spoke as president of WECA about the City branding project. WECA feels that none of the options are winners and that the cost of implementing the campaign would be superfluous — and that the project should be abandoned.
- Mike Callahan: Spoke in favor of Scott Ullery’s professionalism.
- Victoria McMullen: Has read the Ullery emails and believes Mr. Jordan was indeed maligned and that this should be brought up in public.
Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio invited City Director of Public Works Craig Simoneau to respond on the water main issue, and he reported that there have been 46 water main breaks this season and Rockville is on track for a record. And — that the repairs now being made will last the life of the pipe, and they will assess the particular stretch of pipe to see if it should be moved up in the replacement process.
Final Recommendations: City Logo and Tagline
As you know, Rockville has been working with consultants (ROI/CRC) to develop, decide on, and implement a new logo and tagline for the City. (Here’s what I think. Here’s what Cindy thinks.) Since that time, the City has been seeking feedback from the community on the ideas, and tallying it.
The City received 200 responses — here are all the tabulated ones from the online survey.
The consultants’ recommendations is:
Here is how the online voting went:
- The World Class City That Feels Like Home - 61 (30%)
- Find The Good Life In a Great City - 48 (24%)
- Get Into It - 35 (17%)
- No choice made - 60 (29%)
So, the winner beat None of the Above by one vote.
One key discussion of the Mayor and Council centered in implementation. ROI suggests that implementation could be phased in over time and that there are ways of finding money in the communications budget (for instance, by distributing Rockville Reports through the Gazette).
Councilmember Mark Pierzchala thanked the consultants for their hard work and said he thought the initial contract of $75,000 was money well spent, if only for the intelligence gathered. He expressed support for changing “The World Class City” to “A World Class City.” He also said that the implementation of a new brand is not a slippery slope — that the budget moving forward would reflect what is appropriate and what is doable. He had tried to get $10,000 into the budget for communications and that died. “We’re not going to spend a lot of money on this,” he said.
Councilmember John Britton expressed his continued support of #3 (Get Into It) because it is fresh.
Councilmember Bridget Donnell Newton pointed out that she thought the process is not complete. “I would have thought that after you got input from citizens that you would go back to the drawing board and tweak a few things,” she said.
Councilmember Piotr Gajewski expressed agreement with Councilmember Newton that it is not worth spending “up to $500,000″ implementing a new brand. However, using existing money is acceptable. While he feels that too much emphasis is placed on the tag line, he expressed support for “Get Into It,” though he likes the first one too.
Mayor Marcuccio said “I frankly think we have spent enough money on this. I don’t see a point in spending any more. . . . Rockville has gotten to the state it is in without a branding and without a logo. . . . This notion that we have to sell ourselves is just a marketing technique.”
The winner: Click for full size
The Mayor and Council first voted on whether or not to have a logo and tagline at all. That motion passed 3-2 (Britton, Gajewski, Pierzchala voted in favor, and Marcuccio and Newton voted against).
The Mayor and Council next voted on which logo and tagline to go with. After some discussion, Counclimember Britton moved to go with #3 (Get Into It) and this passed 3-2 (B,G,P to M,N).
The winner is:
Get Into It with the “R” logo.
Councilmember Pierzchala said, “The dark horse won.”
Action On Staff Misconduct Allegation By A Councilmember
This issue stems from an exchange relating to the National Golf Foundation report. (I confess I have not understood every bit of how it has unfolded. In my description below, I am trying to be as clear as possible — if I make a mistake, please feel free to correct in the comments.)
A citizen complained that it appeared that the Gazette had had the report before it was posted for public viewing. In an email to the citizen, City Manager Scott Ullery explained that he had released the report to the Mayor and Council and unfortunately a software problem had prevented it from being posted timely on the City’s website. Ullery said he had received a request from the press for the report and, as he had already shared the report with the Mayor and Council, complied. He also said he had shared the report with Joe Jordan, chair of the RedGate Advisory Committee, and had expected he might share it with the Committee. He also said he had sent hard copy to the Committee. Ullery evidently believed the citizen (who was a member of the Committee) had not received a copy of the report from Mr. Jordan. This was not true, as Jordan had forwarded the report.
Here is the key element in Mr. Ullery’s email: “As a member of the Redgate Advisory Group, it is especially regrettable that you’ve not had access to the report. I’d expected that would be accomplished by the electronic copy that Mr. Hall sent to Mr. Jordan on Monday (and the hard copies that I believe followed the next day).” (Here is the full email trail - PDF.)
The citizen felt that Ullery’s email maligned Jordan, and called it unprofessional. At a recent Council meeting, Councilmember Bridget Donnell Newton expressed concern about this email and Ullery’s “very unprofessional” actions. (Here is what she said.)
Some of this has featured in a recent comment thread on Rockville Central available here.
Because the Mayor and Council is the “boss” of the City Manager, Councilmember Piotr Gajewski brought this exchange up and asked Ms. Newton to clarify and called on her to apologize if there was no maligning. He said his rationale is that, if an employee that the Mayor and Council manages has acted unprofessionally, they may need to take managerial action. If the allegation is wrong, then the issue should be clarified publicly. Councilmembers Mark Pierzchala and John Britton voted to place the item on tonight’s agenda, over the objection of Mayor Phyllis Marcuccio, who strongly urged that the discussion take place in executive session.
Last night, as this agenda item came up, Mayor Marcuccio asked Scott Ullery whether he consented to have the matter brought up in public session, and he said he consented.
Councilmember Gajewski then introduced the agenda item: “When it comes to interaction with our staff, and the people we supervise directly, it becomes the council’s business. When anyone of us in an open meeting makes an allegation about someone we supervise, I think it behooves this body to discuss the issue and make findings.” He moved as follows: “The council finds that the allegation that the city manager maligned a citizen in an email to another citizen is not supported by facts and the council disassociates itself from this.”
Councilmember Newton read prepared remarks (which went into detail and which I found very helpful in explaining her position on the issue): “I am not the person who alleged staff misconduct. That choice of words comes straight from Mr. Gajewski. . . . This agenda item is an attempt to discredit me. . . . We are only responsible for the decisions we make by vote, not for our opinions that we may express.” [UPDATE: Ms. Newton's quote was: "We are only responsible as an 'associated group' for the decisions we make by vote. Not the individual comments we should all feel comfortable and free to express."]
[Another UPDATE: Ms. Newton also brought photocopies of the email trails related to this issue, adding more context. The City has made them available as a public record of the meeting, but not online. They are posted here. Thank you to reader Theresa Defino for forwarding them to us.]
The motion to “disassociate” passed 3-2 (B, G, P to M, N).
I have asked Ms. Newton for her remarks and will post them in full if she shares them. For that matter, I encourage all who were a part of this controversy to share whatever documents they would like to, or add to the comments. [UPDATE: She has shared her comments and they are here.]
[Another UPDATE: Ms. Newton passed along a transcription of the portion of her remarks that was not written down ahead of time and asked if we would post it. Here is is: "I am VERY disappointed that the handling of a letter, an email that came from a citizen to you Mr. Ullery, um, concerned about the public dispersement of the report, um, another citizen was then maligned in that email - and the gentleman emailed you back and straightened it out but it is very unfortunate and very unprofessional and I was very disappointed that once again we had a chance to do this right with this report and we didn't do it. And it wasn't until Wednesday of last week - actually Thursday as a Mr. Jordan pointed out that it finally got out to the public and I think that's really too bad."]
The next meeting of the Mayor and Council is scheduled for February 7. [Thank you to Councilmember Newton for pointing out the previous incorrect date.]
Why did we bother with a survey, if the council was going to ignore the results and select the least popular option (much lower even than “no choice made”)?
I completely agree with Peter Mork. I don’t know what’s worse: the complete dismissal of the will of those surveyed or the choice of such a lifeless slogan. “Get into it” says nothing about the city and evokes no spirit. It won’t inspire one mouse click.
I don’t usually get outraged at local political decisions, but let me get this straight: The council (average age: a billion) voted for “Get Into It” because it sounds young and hip. As someone who is still relatively young (20s), I say it sounds cliched and unnecessary and just plain stupid! What does it even mean??? If anything, Rockville’s new slogan will become a joke amongst teenagers.
I voted “none of the above” but would have preferred the front-runner in the survey to “Get Into It.”
And this is costing city taxpayers $75,000! For something only 35 citizens and 3 councilmembers like!
Can’t wait for election time. I think this folly is going to cost some councilmembers their seats.
Nick, it wasn’t a unaminous vote…Gajewski, Britton and Pierzchala voted for it, Marcuccio and Newton voted against it. The $75K has already been spent.
Let’s see if I have this right. After the citizen survey, the council 1) carefully evaluated the results of the survey, then 2) one councilmember moved we adopt the THIRD (last) choice, so 3) you have an up/down vote on adopting the third choice. As a citizen, next time don’t ask me if you don’t care.
And it seems like the Council have spent way too much time sniping back and forth over a misinterpreted email. You could have used the time to more carefully evaluate the tagline survey.
Tom Martin
i have watched the archive of the meeting that contains mr. jordan’s beginning comments several times.
his exact words are:
“It’s no secret I am the person to have been maligned by Mr. Ullery.”
Once again, Ii seems to me that the only 2 people on the Mayor and Council that appear to care about keeping spending down is the Mayor and Councilmember Newton.
500,000 dollars to brand Rockville? Even spending one dime was a waste of tax money.
I have also watched the interaction of the City Manager Mr. Ullery of multiple occasions. What I see is a person who appears to give the Mayor and Council just enough information and no more.
Sometimes he just plain looks lost and unprepared for detailed discussion.
How this man’s contract was renewed is a mystery to me.
Very disappointed with the way the logo selection was handled. I also voted for none of them because I think there are a lot of people who could do better. And as several have already pointed out, why spend the time and energy to put out a survey that’s going to be ignored? What other issues will residents’ voices be ignored on?
Barf. That slogan sounds like a leftover from the 70′s, when I was in High School. I am so disappointed in the Councilmembers who have disregarded the will of the people who voted. This is a waste of money and I can think of better ways to spend it.
Since viewing the Council meeting on Monday the 25th, I have struggled to make sense of
the whole “maligning” controversy. I have carefully read both the published email messages
and the prepared statements of Mr. Jordan and Ms. Newton - and have replayed the relevant
sections of the video broadcast of the Council meeting.
To begin with, I fail to see why Mr. Jordan is so offended by the failure of the city staff to post the NGF Red Gate report on the city’s website at the same time it was made available to the press and others, including himself. With no Council action pending, a delay of a few days in the posting of the full report on the web should have been of little consequence - especially since it had already been distributed to Mr. Jordan and, through him, to the Red Gate advisory committee.
At Citizen’s Forum at the meeting of the 25th, Mr. Jordan re-emphasized his outrage and claimed that he had been maligned by City Manager Ullery. (Contrary to Mr. Jordan’s written statement, a careful listening to his Citizen’s Forum remarks reveals that he omitted the phrase “said to have been” from his oral comments.)
Furthermore, Mr. Jordan’s justification of his feeling “maligned, impugned, insulted, and
hurt” because Mr. Ullery had implied that Mr. Jordan had shirked his responsibilities by not
disseminating the NGF report is not supported by a reading of Mr. Ullery’s email message. In
fact, Mr. Ullery was very careful not to imply any such misfeasance on the part of Mr. Jordan
and restricted himself to stating that “I’d expected that would be accomplished by the
electronic copy that Mr. Hall sent to Mr. Jordan on Monday”.
It should have been obvious to the concerned parties that, since the writer of the original email was a member of the Redgate Advisory Group, that Mr. Ullery had interpreted the complaint about the delayed release as referring to its release to that Group. That Mr. Jordan should escalate this simple misunderstanding to the level of a personal offence does not make any sense to me.
Ms. Newton’s defense of her earlier criticisms of Mr. Ullery was even more lacking in
sense. For example, she accurately quotes Mr. Ullery’s complete comment noted above and then goes on to draw the conclusion that “the presumption there is that Mr. Jordan did not forward the Redgate report and the implication is that Mr. Jordan cannot be expected to conduct his responsibilities as Chairman.” This “presumption” and “implication” drawn by Ms. Newton is far-fetched at best and cannot either excuse or explain her earlier critical remarks directed at Mr. Ullery.
This comment is responsive to the remarks made by Councilmember Bridget Newton at the Mayor and Council meeting summarized above. Her remarks can be read in full by following the link found at the end of the third paragraph from the bottom of the above article.
I will not belabor the issue by debating Councilmember Newton on the interpretation of the e-mails from Mr. Scott Ullery to Mr. Rober Lalley, which have been the subject of this whole issue. They speak for themselves (and Vince Bianca provides a fine rebuttal right above this comment). I do want to address several new misrepresentations that appear in Ms. Newton’s remarks.
Ms. Newton, in the very second sentence states: “I am not the person who alleged ‘Staff Misconduct’ – that choice of words and level of concern comes straight from Mr. Gajewski.”
It is difficult to discern what Ms. Newton is getting at here. Is she implying that, in her opinion, a maligning of a citizen by the City Manager would not constitute staff misconduct, or is she stating that she never made the allegation? To the second point, her allegation is available on video. To the first point, I cannot see how the Council would fail to view as “misconduct” a maligning of a citizen by the City Manager.
Later in her remarks, Ms. Newton states: “Missing from your brief books and the online agenda items – are other documents, which Mr. Gajewski and the City Manager’s office chose not to provide.” She then goes on to speak about e-mails that I wrote to her, which, indeed are irrelevant with respect to the agenda issue of whether or not the City Manager maligned a citizen in an e-mail. But no matter: I provided the materials that I thought were relevant. I wish Ms. Newton had provided the materials that she thought were relevant (in time for posting with the agenda, not during the agenda item discussion). Obviously neither the City Manager’s office nor I can divine what Ms. Newton might feel is relevant.
Finally, Ms. Newton goes on to allege that I threatened her in an e-mail; she writes: “Such bullying tactics are not part of civility…”
The allegation of “bullying” is particularly regrettable as bullying is a serious problem in our nation’s schools and workplaces, and throwing the term around loosely, takes away from the gravity of that issue.
Ms. Newton writes: “What is clear to me is that this agenda item was an attempt to discredit me and my comments.” On this, I absolutely do agree with Ms. Newton. Evaluating the credibility of her comments with respect to her allegation of misconduct against the City Manager was indeed the purpose of the agenda item. Likewise, the purpose of the present comment is to raise the issue of credibility of her accusations leveled at me.
The complete e-mail, which Ms. Newton points to as being uncivil and based on which she accuses me of employing “bullying tactics,” appears below:
Dear Bridget,
I have spoken to the City Attorney about your allegation that the City Manager “maligned” a citizen in an e-mail to another citizen. As this is a serious accusation leveled at an employee who reports to the Council, it behooves the Council to follow up on the allegation.
Clearly, if your allegation has merit, we may want to discipline the employee or, at the very least, raise the issue at his next performance review.
On the other hand, if you stand by your allegation, but it is found to be without merit, then the Council may want to formally disassociate itself from the allegation and perhaps take other action to express the Council’s condemnation of a false allegation by one of our own.
Finally, if you simply misspoke, the easiest course would be, as I suggested in a previous e-mail, for you to retract your statement and publicly apologize to the City Manager.
Presently, I call on you to please point me to the e-mail reference that you made at the last meeting. If I do not hear from you on this issue or hear from you that you indeed misspoke and plan to offer an apology on Tuesday, I will move forward with formally asking the City Attorney, at the Tuesday meeting, to look into this matter.
Kindest Regards,
Piotr
@vince - I agree completely with your comments above. The whole “maligning” controversy looks like a case where it’s not really about the purported subject. There are deeper issues at play. Our councilmembers as well as some of the citizens involved seem to be picking fights. The ambiguous wording in Mr. Ullery’s email would not usually incite one to feel maligned absent some previous trouble. And Ms. Newton’s public jumping into it speaks to deeper motives on her part as well. This whole thing should have been handled in private, person to person. If after such a discussion Mr. Jordan still felt maligned, he could escalate. Once (for whatever reason) Ms. Newton publicly stated that Mr. Ullery HAD maligned a citizen, well, then, Mr. Gajewski is correct, the whole thing needs to be settled publicly.
Maybe we could all do a reality show. “Rockville City Hall” - see your representatives “Get Into It!”
Tom Martin
I too am kinda baffled by the reaction to the email, I read it several times to try and find the offensive sentence. I didn’t find anything offensive aimed at Mr Jordan. I’m not sure why Ms Newton blasted Mr Ullery for that email, perhaps she hadn’t yet had a chance to read the full text of the email? It is pretty clear that something else is going on. Small city *drama*… get into it!
Tom Martin
“Maybe we could all do a reality show. “Rockville City Hall” – see your representatives “Get Into It!”
NOW THAT’S BRANDING!!!
I smell a citizen survey in the making. At least we get something for the 75K.
Seriously, there does seem to be more going on inside City Hall than we know. I doubt Councilmember Newton did not have a valid reason for her comment about Mr. Ullery.
Just my opnion.
On a seperate issue.
Councilmember Piotr Gajewski said:
“Presently, I call on you to please point me to the e-mail reference that you made at the last meeting. If I do not hear from you on this issue or hear from you that you indeed misspoke and plan to offer an apology on Tuesday, I will move forward with formally asking the City Attorney, at the Tuesday meeting, to look into this matter.”
Why has Council member Piotr Gajewski consulted the City attorney for an opnion? What is the basis for the further expendature of public funds on this folly?
If Mr. Ullery feels that someone violated his legal rights then maybe he should be the one standing up to his supervisor.
Does the City attorney serve the Mayor and council or report directly to the City manager?
If the City Attorney reports directly to the city manager, then this puts her in a tough spot. Imagine how awkward this would be. What would be the end result?
Hey …maybe we can waste more tax dollars having the City Attorney look into this issue.
It would seem that this bickering between the elected officials is reaching a boiling point.and is far from the intrest of conducting the peoples business.
I cannot wait till November!
Mr. Mercer:
Thank you for raising these issues. You seem to have received some bogus information, so I am happy for the opportunity to clarify:
1. Prior to the January 24 meeting, I had a 10 minute conversation with the City attorney about this issue. In the end her assistance was not required in any way.
2. No money was expended and, to my knowledge, there is no plan to expend any money.
3. There is no issue with respect to violating Mr. Ullery’s “rights.” The only issue was the allegation of misconduct against him in an open meeting by Councilmember Newton. This issue has now been disposed off, with the Council finding the allegation to be without merit.
4. The City Attorney reports directly to the Mayor and Council (not to the City Manager), hence the possible problem you expand upon is not an issue.
5. No tax dollars have been expended, so the characterization that “more” may be expended is without premise.
I hope that this is responsive to your concerns.