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Auburn sweeping out city’s cleaning crew |
A mere 13 persons were in the audience for Monday night’s marathon three-hour Auburn City Council meeting and most of those were city staff members and soon to be ex-city employees.
The last item on the city council’s agenda was the citywide reorganization that is supposed to save up to $700,000 annually over the next three years. This shuffling of duties includes the layoffs, or position eliminations, of more than 11 percent of the city’s workforce.
Hardest hit in the cuts is the Public Works Department where three positions are getting the ax. The entire custodial crew, including the contractor who currently cleans the Old Town public restroom and the Robert F. Conheim Multimodal Station, is going to be replaced by an independent cleaning service.
The City Council voted unanimously to direct City Manager Robert Richardson to collect “request for qualifications” (essentially job applications) from independent contractors to provide cleaning services to all citywide facilities, including the airport and City Hall.
Kathy Whiting, a representative with the city employees’ union, told the City Council that their decision was not a smart one.
“This is a cultural decision to layoff the custodial workers,” she said. “They are background checked and they have access to your work areas when you are not around. They have access to your computers, files, offices and desks. You are eliminating your custodial (staff) in favor of independent janitorial workers who work for minimum wage and are not background checked.”
City Clerk Joe Labrie took the City Council and Richardson to task during public comment.
“The whole process was unfair. People are getting a two-week notice out of the blue and no one was consulted. This hurts these people. What are they going to do when their house payments are coming up?” Labrie said.
Two weeks ago, it was announced that the city would be offering a two-year retirement incentive to qualified employees. One of those being offered the deal is Airport Manager Jerry Martin, who did not attend the meeting Monday night.
In a bizarre turn, Martin was escorted off the airport premises by Auburn Police Lt. Scott Burns just days after the City Council meeting two weeks ago. Martin was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. The city had no comment at the time since it was a “personnel matter.”
Reporting to the City Council Monday night, Richardson informed them that he was dealing with unusual circumstances at the airport.
“It came to my attention that a lot of service contracts were being cancelled (effective) the end of the month,” Richardson said.
The “end of the month” would have been Martin’s last days as airport manager and he would have been the only person at the airport with the authority to sign and, therefore, cancel service contracts.
At Tuesday’s meeting of the Auburn Chamber of Commerce Forum, City Councilman Mike Holmes confirmed the termination of those service contracts coincided with Martin’s last days of employment, according to a source who attended the meeting but asked to remain anonymous.
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