By: Gena Johnson | Warren Weekly | Published September 24, 2024
WARREN — City Council members expressed concern at their Aug. 27 meeting that various appointments, including nearly 100 city positions, have not been filled in the nine months Mayor Lori Stone has been in office.
Although some positions are in the process of being filled, according to Council Secretary Mindy Moore, there are approximately 99 vacant positions.
Appointments can be filled faster than permanent civil service positions because, “There are less hoops to go through,” Moore said.
“We shouldn’t be having this conversation on the 27th of August,” Warren City Councilman Jonathan Lafferty said. “We shouldn’t have had this conversation three months ago like we did.”
Stone took office in November 2023.
“You are supposed to walk into that office, having been elected to the highest office in Warren, with a plan, with an army of appointees ready and willing to serve,” Lafferty said. “There is no excuse to walk in and not have that plan ready. It’s a disservice to the residents. It’s a disservice to this council.”
In a previous interview, Stone said, “Oh, no. This is a big process and even appointments to commissions are ongoing and continuous. They are constantly being considered and being filled and reappointed.
“Our city deserves the best,” Stone said. “I’m not here to hand out political favors. I’m not here to appoint friends and family. I’m not here because I’m beholden to special interests. I am here because I am committed to my community and making it the best and realizing its potential.”
The mayor said her process is to “listen, learn and lead.”
“When I was reaching out to residents and asking them to hire me as mayor, I wasn’t conducting interviews, and I wasn’t making promises,” Stone said. “What I said was, when I come in, I’m going to listen, I’m going to learn and I’m going to lead based on the needs of our community. That continues to be the pace.”
Legal staff
Councilmembers had questions for the mayor regarding the Pride event held June 29. They were disconcerted when they received correspondence from Assistant City Attorney Mary Michaels, signed with the title of acting city attorney, which addressed council’s concerns on the mayor’s behalf.
“Not having a permanent city attorney is a huge problem,” Moore said.
“According to the charter, the city attorney reports to us (the council). So we have a different relationship with the city attorney than we would (with) somebody in the city attorney’s office,” Moore said. “We deserve that, so that we know that person is going to be working in our best interest and answers to us.”
The term “acting” city attorney, according to Moore, is a designation to be used for a maximum of four weeks.
“There is no ‘acting’ (according to the charter) except in the city’s attorney’s office. The chief assistant attorney, according to the UAW contract, may be the acting city attorney for up to four weeks,” Moore said. “That is the only place for an ‘acting’ anything.”
Replacing themselves
Moore said another concern involves an apparent gray area, when an acting department head is in charge of finding their own replacement.
“I am especially concerned about HR, that there is a term ‘acting’ and that person is supposed to be charged with finding their replacement. That’s concerning to me,” Moore said. “I think someone outside the acting HR director should be looking for an HR director.”
Jackie Damron has been the acting human resources director since George Dimas, the city’s former director of human resources, left after losing his bid for mayor to Stone.
According to the City Council’s attorney Jeffrey Schroder, there is no provision in the city charter for acting or interim appointments, only a provisional appointment.
“Provisional appointment assumes that the position was already in the position and can continue provisionally until a replacement is found. That requires council approval,” Schroder said.
Council has not made an issue of appointments serving under acting title for a month or two, but when it goes on for seven, eight or nine months, or even years, according to Schroder, he suggests the mayor should make a formal appointment, file it with the clerk and then have it sent to council for their approval. That way, the administration would be in compliance with the charter.
Police hiring
In the previous administration, police hiring was conducted by the Warren Police Department. Stone returned the hiring practice of police to the city’s Human Resources Department.
“That should definitely demonstrate regardless of where hiring was being done, that the shortfall of officers wasn’t because of who was hiring the officers. It was really an indicator of what the hiring environment is and the labor environment right now,” Stone said.
“It is essential that hiring is housed where hiring belongs, which is human resources,” Stone said. “For me it is common sense. It was quite baffling that it would be anywhere else. The fact that this has been politicized is problematic.”
Under Stone’s administration, employment applications are now online, and prospective employees can go directly to the city’s hiring portal. The Police Department is on their fifth hiring cycle and has hired 14 officers in the past nine months, according to Stone.
Stone has met with Warren Police Commissioner Charles Rushton to discuss innovative ways to attract the best and the brightest to Warren, which she referred to as a destination police department. Some of the ways included going to police academies to recruit, offering scholarships for the police academy, and recruiting high school students as dispatchers. At 21-years-old, if interested, they can segue into an officer’s role, after the proper training.
“I have heard more often than not that Warren seems to be lagging far behind. Our process (for hiring officers) is several weeks longer than that of neighboring municipalities,” Lafferty said. “These candidates have an offer and job in hand by the time Warren responds.”
Appointments
Among the appointments recently filled were two reappointments as captains in the Warren Police Department, which were received Aug. 27 by the City Council, which now has to approve the appointments.
Moore noted it took nine months for a reappointment.
“We only have two council meetings to address this. So this was too short notice for us to put on the agenda. So they’ve cut our window of time for us to make a decision down to only one council meeting,” Moore said. “I don’t appreciate that, but I suppose it is within the charter.”
The administration sent three commission appointments to be approved by the City Council at the Sept. 10 meeting. Councilmembers voted to table the vote on the appointments.
“Council wished to see unredacted information before we voted on those appointments,” Moore said in an interview.
The administration sent a copy of the appointees’ information with their telephone numbers, emails, addresses, driver’s license numbers and ZIP codes redacted, according to Moore.
“We don’t need that (the driver’s license number),” Moore said. “We do need phone and email to contact the candidates if we have any questions.”