'Problem' cited at Parks and Rec; bosses puzzled

By Daniel J. Chacon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published July 11, 2008 at 12:04 p.m.
Updated July 11, 2008 at 11:33 p.m.

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Another employee who was fired from the Denver Parks and Recreation Department has appealed the dismissal and won.

Two months ago, Parks and Rec was ordered to reinstate three employees who were fired for making "significant errors" in payroll.

The reversal of discipline - decisions made by Career Service hearing officers - has been perplexing to department heads.

Consider the case of Geoffrey Strasser, who was fired from the Willis Case Golf Course in July 2007 after asking a 17-year-old male intern if he had ever seen pop singer Britney Spears topless and then showing him pornography on a computer at work, according to city documents.

A hearing officer reversed the firing and Strasser received a 30-day suspension instead.

In the most recent case, longtime recreation coordinator Ronalda Mounjim was fired, in part, because the department said she failed to meet goals in a performance improvement plan.

But even the head of recreation couldn't define one of the goals.

When the Career Service hearing officer asked Recreation Director Dolores Moreno to define "prioritization of deliverables," she offered this explanation according to a transcript of the hearing:

"Um, basically what you're, what you're going to do if, um, if you have, um, a timeline of objectives and delivery dates, and so, um, for us, and I'll give you an example.

"For us, we have, um, a citywide brochure that comes out, um, four times a year, and so, um, so I'm going back to the session calendar is, ah, you know, why we have those registration dates when, when content is due, what posting is due etcetera, etcetera, and so, so if, um, so if our, um delivery date of the, um, brochure is . . . you know, um . . . February second, that, um, the kind of our targeted places in our neighborhoods, whether it's schools, whether it's churches, businesses, etcetera etcetera, that, um, that part of the prioritization is, one, you know, who's going to be responsible for that."

Moreno continued the explanation before ending it with: "So it's pretty basic."

Hearing officer Bruce Plotkin said of the testimony offered by Moreno and other managers: "It was clear (that they) struggled to present a coherent definition."

Parks and Rec spokeswoman Jill McGranahan said the department is still considering its options in the Mounjim case.

"Because this is a pending legal matter . . . we are not prepared to comment at this time," she said.

Ed Bagwell, an organizer with the Teamsters, Local Union No. 17, which has represented some of the fired workers, said the city is "foolishly" fighting losing cases.

"Every case we've taken, we've had meetings with them to try to settle these issues, and they've refused," he said. "We have to take it to the hearings officers . . . and we're winning every one of them."

The union wasn't involved in the Strasser porn case, he said.

Strasser's attorney, Casey Paison, said Parks and Rec seems to handle discipline in an "arbitrary and capricious" manner.

"I think Goeff's is a case that is emblematic of the problem at Parks and Rec," he said. "There's really excess discipline that's being imposed . . . and it's not being upheld by Career Service."

chacond@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5099

• July 11, 2008

  1:46 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BetterEducated writes:

  YES!!!!!!!!!!!
  THANK YOU!!!!!!!
  If public entities are going to recognize collective bargaining agents as exclusive representatives of workers, then LET THOSE REPRESENTATIVES BE THE TEAMSTERS!!!!!
  The city (and more recently, the state) have adopted the same mechanism utilized at Denver Public Schools for its classified workers. Only, at DPS, the "unions" are inhouse agents who don't really represent workers at all and in some cases were never elected by the workers either. THEIR officers become DPS administrators.
  Is a Teamster representative going to become a Denver administrative worker? -- not likely. THIS IS HOW IT IS SUPPOSED TO WORK, and I THANK YOU, DENVER, for recognizing honest-to-goodness, no-kidding labor unions even if some of the results give you a headache.
  In addition to Teamster representation, Denver workers also have a merit-based civil service mechanism that is parallel to the state civil service program.
  Do you know what DPS classified workers have? Collective bargaining agreements with inhouse "labor unions."

• July 11, 2008

  1:48 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  windskull writes:

  Sounds like the gene pool from which Eastern Plains Government derives...come out here & experience it first hand your head will explode!

• July 11, 2008

  2:37 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  wisdomwriter writes:

  With all due respect to the Teamsters I think the RMN should check into the claim that "...ans we are winning every one of them." I worked at the City and I do not believe for one second that they have won every single one over the past two years...

• July 11, 2008

  2:54 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BetterEducated writes:

  All I know is that I'm so relieved that, since these public entities have decided to unionize, the workers are getting real representation.
  That is a little unexpected, now I will have to rethink some of my recent negative attitude about my home city. Looking into DPS labor matters did something weird to my brain; in fact I am darned lucky not to be so debilitated that I'm left communicating like a Denver managerial rep.
  GOOD for Denver, that's all I can say!!

• July 11, 2008

  3:01 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Buckwheat writes:

  "Um, seems to me, um that ah, we have some of the um, wrong people in positions of um, authority here. Um."

• July 11, 2008

  3:08 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Retread writes:

  City officials seem to, um, need to, um, get there um, stuff together, before they um, take on arbitration, pretty um, basic..

• July 11, 2008

  3:29 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BetterEducated writes:

  It's in the water. Perfectly sane people take these jobs and, after visiting the cooler a couple of times, are transformed. It's like an instant chemical labotomy.
  Don't tell me these people interviewed this way and were the best of the batch. No, it's the System that wears their brains to a nub. After X number of years, they no longer expect anything at all to make sense -- because nothing does in the course of their daily "civic" endeavors.

• July 11, 2008

  3:59 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  dummas writes:

  I wonder if this stand up management team has anything to do with the pond scum and all the other things Denver is trying to clean up in their park system before the DNC. And on that note; this should look real good to the pro-union delegates. Way to go Denver!

• July 11, 2008

  4:59 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  CyberHostage writes:

  Denver, have you learned NOTHING from Jimmy Hoffa? These are some tough hombres. They could make you disappear overnight, and then place their puppet (Colorado Springs) as The new seat of power in Colorado. Beware of them trying to lure you to Limon for a meeting to discuss.

• July 11, 2008

  5:16 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BetterEducated writes:

  Oh, I absolutely agree.
  But if you are going to recognize unions, they should be Real Live Unions and not some confusing, lukewarm *coughLudwigMassacrecough* inhouse masquerade.
  These are not "unions," they are oppressive extensions of management itself that workers have to support.
  My personal opinion is that workers employed under a civil service mechanism should have no need of labor union representation. It's the merit-based and grievace-affording mechanisms of civil service that unions typically provide to private workers who are not entitled to civil service.
  Public school workers should receive and be controlled by a merit-based civil service mechanism, so should all other public-entity employees, and aLL employees, managerial and otherwise, should be subjected to this same mechanism. Colorado does not mandate union recognition by public entities, so they should be neither needed nor recognized, end of story. Just IMO.

• July 11, 2008

  5:18 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  BetterEducated writes:

  Sorry, make that *coughLudlowMassacre* instead, lol.

• July 11, 2008

  6:34 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  happymike44 writes:

  According to the story she was fired for poor job performance.
  After 19 years of service then they decided to fire her.
  This sounds like a way to get out of paying for her pension.
  She has given so much of her life to the city and look how they treated her.
  Well now they will have to pay up for this mistake.
  Everyone know it takes documention to terminate people.
  Even if she was not doing her job.
  They still needed to show proof of it.

• July 12, 2008

  1:24 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  LOUIE writes:

  Face it folks, working for the government is total job security regardless of whatever you want to do on the job. In this case spending your day introducing juveniles to pornography, payroll malfeasance, the "UM I'm Dumb" factor you name it, you can do it. God himself can't fire a Denver city worker. I guess the only thing this article, and decades of news exposures and media examples, has taught the the rest of society whose money pays the bills is this: If you are a lazy, no count bum of little or no intelligence go to work for the City of Denver; you'll have a party time making bank with benifits doing whatever the Hell you desire. To all the hard working city employees, this is what brings you down even if you don't desrve this. The sad thing for the good employees is this has never changed nor will it ever change; the good are suffering for the sake of the bad. Sad the taxpayer has to support these bums, but that's what makes it a great job for the bums to latch on to. Party on!

• July 12, 2008

  12:07 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  280Pagoda writes:

  Denver's civil servant system is it not a meritocracy and rarely has been, but has devolved to a near Soviet style management structure focused on minimum performance valuing attendance over accomplishments. First Pena, then Webb took patronage to a Chicago-style political payback system where the underclass were given protected long-term employment if they just showed up, commit as few provable felonies as possible, and do just enough work to keep the Media from finding too many easy headlines.

  Park and Wreck is a uniquely dysfunctional system where mostly absent political appointees/managers/overseers rule the roost like 18th Century monarchs whose accountably only becomes visible when they cross the line into gross malfeasance that even a disinterested media can have fun with (Baily's gone 30 hrs pr week working on her education to get another job to get the heck out of there, BJ Brooks attends 60+ Rockies games per year, Charles Robertson's felony conviction of embezzlement of department funds for his personal restaurants, etc, etc, etc).

  The remaining civil servants are petty dictators whose focus is to keep their heads down and get to retirement without getting culled out themselves. Their hammers are out to pound down any nail that stands too tall, or calls attention to the Kafka novella where the sin is to show the new help how to surf for porn at work, not to surf for porn at work itself.

  Add some union activity to keep the dues collections going and the three ring circus has fun stuff going on every minute of every performance day. Last month's featured act: An HR director whose resume includes "Talking to the Dead" and the ability to see into the future. Makes you wonder what entertaining story is in the wings for next week/month/year.

  Pity the poor souls who work there who want to provide a real service and not hit one of the many land mines out there to cull out those who feel goals and productivity have a place in government offices.

  Reinstatement of a worker teaching the new kids how to surf for porn at work really just recognizes Park and Wreck for the circus it is. Why pick on or fire this poor guy? He just needs to learn to stop being so obvious. Thank god the union is there to help protect this poor victim.

  And so it goes under the civil service big-top circus.

• July 12, 2008

  12:38 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Anywhere writes:

  All human beings get stage fright at one point or another but what is even more ludicrous is that priority and delivery are 4th Grade level words....seems union folks have not yet passed the 3rd Grade.

  http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/art...

• July 13, 2008

  11:51 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  UglyAmerican writes:

  I find previous comments about this being a union issue to be wide of the mark.

  The reinstatement of the fired employee occurred when management was not able to produce any evidence that the employee had failed to perform, and more shockingly, any evidence that there was any standard or goal to which the employee should strive.

  PositiveWare has been repeating for the past five years what some management practitioners have known for decades: The key to maximum performance is positive reinforcement, which in turn comes from an environment where employees know what they are supposed to be working on, why it is important, and how they are doing.

  When Mayor Hickenlooper announced his intention to implement performance management in the city, we were very excited and made numerous attempts to reach out to the city, only to be rebuffed by the IT consultants who were in charge of the project. Putting aside the wisdom of putting IT people in charge of people projects, the city failed in its effort to implement a performance management scheme upon the departure of his appointee. The results are painfully obvious.

  In fact, the effort by the manager to explain the employee's goals or how she had failed was pathetic in the extreme.

  Imagine instead if the manager had been able to refer instead to the http://www.positiveware.com/client-ac... for the employee. If the employee had really not performed, that would be obvious. But even better, with clear goals, it is unlikely the situation would have escalated to this point. And as BetterEducated points out, with a competent performance management scheme in place the role of the public service union would be none.

  The question of accountability must ultimately rise to the mayor, who talked a good game in this area but has come up short.

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