The Judge Report - July 14th, 2009

If you read my previous posts on this topic, here and here, you will recall that City of Amsterdam City Hall Head Custodian Jim Crisalli, who had been my first source on the story about Alderman Brumley demolishing and rebuilding a garage without the necessary permits, with the able assistance of Alderman Roth (both of whom have chosen not to seek re-election), received a letter in the mail from Mayor Ann Thane, on five days notice, announcing that his job would be terminated as of July 1, because the Budget Review Board had eliminated his position and created a lower-level, lesser-paying one.

Problem with that assertion was that no one who was asked about this recalled it ever happening, no one has produced any minutes of any meeting (which are required to be in open session) when this was decided, no reporter made any note of it, neither the CSEA Union nor Mr. Crisalli ever heard of it, and the budget itself showed Crisalli's position, along with his name, fully funded.

Jim has been out on disability, month to month, since having quadrupal bypass surgery.

Crisalli requested the lower position under protest, pending resolution of the grievances filed on his behalf by the union. That will work itself out.

Meanwhile, Controller Reynicke announced at the last Common Council meeting that there had been a "mistake" in a personnel line item in the budget and suggested that the budget be amended at the next meeting to correct the "mistake".

I'm pretty sure I know what that "mistake" is, and it will be interesting to see if the Budget Review Board (the Common Council and the Mayor and Controller) have anything at all to say about this when it is voted on, or will it all be a series of twelve digit account numbers being transferred here and there while the custodian's enemies exact their revenge.

Meanwhile, the mayor has been examining the personnel files of city employees and is shocked to learn how clean most of them are on the disciplinary side, and has instructed certain department heads that they need to begin bringing action against the employees to keep them on their toes, or to set the stage for the removal of disloyal officers. One department head has even been told that he must bring his employees under control because they have been known to say bad things about her.

Not so nice.

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I should add that due to attrition in his department, Mr. Crisalli and his part time assistant have been doing the work of what at one time was a staff of twelve.