Jax City Council "We were Lied to about Directors hire"!

[Cheshire Cat]

A lot of "dubious" dealings seem to be taking place in City Hall these days.  Now we have a case where the process to hire a Director for Employee Services was circumvented and the job just given to one man.  The City Rules committee is calling "foul".  When they inquired about the hire those responding could not give any competent answers as to how there was no evidence of a supposed 40 applicants for the job.  No one has determined yet if the resume for the man hired came from the mayors office.  My guess is it did and it would have taken someone at the level of the Mayor to tell a City Department and committee to mislead the council about the hire.  I intent to find out how this happened as well with an inquiry to investigate to the City Ethic's Officer! 

The city of Jacksonville will post an announcement Friday seeking applicants for a job it filled last month.

The job, as head of the city’s Employee Services Department, is still filled.

But city officials decided advertising the job was necessary after telling a City Council committee this week the city had already advertised the post â€" which is required by law â€" then admitting it hadn’t.

And the 30 or 40 resumes that had reportedly been reviewed before Edward Gadsden was hired as the city’s director of employee services didn’t exist, unless you counted applications people filed in 2011, the last time the city looked for a human resources chief.

That has left members of the council Rules Committee wondering whether someone meant to mislead them about the selection made for the $135,000-a-year job, or was just a fountain of bad information.

“I am convinced that the testimony provided to the committee by city employees was not only false,” Councilman John Crescimbeni fumed in an email to Rules members Thursday, “but the result of either gross incompetence or a deliberate attempt to manufacture untruths.”

Crescimbeni was holding back.

“I was careful not to use the word lie,” he said later. “But I definitely feel like the committee was either misled or we were just getting information from people who didn’t know what the hell they’re taking about. Either concerns me greatly.”

Rules members have scheduled another meeting Monday at 11 a.m. to talk more about how Gadsden was hired, and they were misinformed.

“These are serious concerns,” Rules Chair Clay Yarborough said by email

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-06-20/story/jacksonville-council-panel-were-we-lied-about-how-directors-job-was#ixzz2WrGEgEyC

[Cheshire Cat]

I have contacted the City Ethics Office about this issue.  There will be a special meeting called by Councilman John Crescimbini about this hire, the process used and who submitted the single resume for the fellow given the job.  Our Ethics officer will be attending the meeting. 

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I guess the gears do turn quite slowly at City Hall....

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Corporate exec tapped to be Jacksonville's next employee services director

Submitted by Steve Patterson on May 6, 2013 - 1:41pm
PolitiJax
JView this blog post on the All-Access Members site
Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown has picked a corporate diversity and personnel executive to run the city’s human resources office.

Edward N. Gadsden Jr., who until September was chief diversity officer for drug-maker Pfizer, started Monday at City Hall.

The City Council still needs to confirm his new role as the city’s director of employee services.

Gadsden developed a global diversity strategy for Pfizer starting in February 2010. From 2008 to 2010, he had been an executive consultant focused on diversity strategy and employee engagement.

Gadsden, formerly of Atlanta, was Coca-Cola’s vice president of human resources and global diversity from 2000 to 2007, then spent about nine months as a vice president of Advanced Micro Devices.

He'll be paid $135,000 a year by the city.

Gadsden’s selection led Brown’s office to ask the council Rules Committee Monday to withdraw a bill naming Ellen Blair as the acting employee services director.


http://jacksonville.com/opinion/blog/403455/steve-patterson/2013-05-06/corporate-exec-tapped-be-jacksonvilles-next-employee

[Cheshire Cat]

So, the Mayor announced his pic.  My question is how did he make his pic if no other resumes were on file or reviewed and how exactly did Mr. Gadsden end up on the "Mayors" radar?  It is looking like the man may have been "ordained" as director as opposed to being selected.  Something is not right here.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I'm sure his pic was made solely on the quality of the resume that he had in hand....



After noticing that Mr. Gadsden isn't afraid to bounce around from one company to another, it seemed a perfect match for ABs staff, seeing that he will probably be looking for another job really soon.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

I also find it a little disturbing that you can be selected, hired and confirmed for the position before any vetting actually begins....

[Cheshire Cat]

I also find it a little disturbing that you can be selected, hired and confirmed for the position before any vetting actually begins....

Indeed.  The entire and lawful process of advertising the opening, collecting resumes, reviewing them etc was apparently circumvented.  In the end I believe we will all find out that this story begins and ends with Alvin Brown's instructions as to who would be hired and how.  Monday's meeting should be interesting.  I wonder what excuse will be given for the inability to provide the other so called resumes that were submitted in response to a job opening that was never properly published?  Looks to be quite the "slippery slope"! I will be surprised if this bill gets past the "Rules" committee.

[CityLife]

Mayor Alvin Brown’s office has fired the man picked last month to run Jacksonville’s human resources department, Brown’s chief of staff told a City Council committee Monday.

Edward Gadsden and a department liaison, Lori Mason, were removed for giving false information to the council Rules Committee about how Gadsden was selected to be director of the Employee Services Department.

After reviewing tapes of their comments to the committee last week, “it became clear that any reasonable council person or member of the administration would have felt misled,” said Chris Hand, the mayor’s chief of staff.

Ellen Blair, who has been chief of the department’s talent management division, was named acting director, and Hand said other changes were expected.

“There are some changes occurring in Employee Services as we speak,” he told the committee.

Gadsden, who has been an executive at drug-maker Pfizer and Coca-Cola, had been presented to the committee last week as the top choice from among 30 to 40 candidates for the director’s job. But after council members asked to see resumes of the others, city officials said there had been no one considered for the job except Gadsden, and that the dozens of people mentioned were job-seekers considered in 2011 for a division chief’s job.

Mason had told the committee that the opening for Employee Services director had been advertised, which turned out to be untrue. Hand told Rules members that people in Brown’s office had also believed information that Mason and Gadsden told the committee.

Council members gave Brown’s office credit for handling the situation decisively.

“I know this wasn’t an easy decision, probably, to make, but it was the right decision,” Councilman John Crescimbeni told Hand. “I appreciate you coming here today and owning up.”

At Hand’s request, the committee withdrew legislation that would have confirmed Gadsden in the director’s job. That would make it theoretically possible for him to be appointed to the job again, but Hand said that would not happen.

“I can tell you with absolute certainty … that Ed Gadsden will not be the director of employee services,” he said.

The city began advertising Friday for the director’s job, which had paid Gadsden $135,000 a year.

Are we one of the largest cities in the US or some backwoods town in Arkansas?

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2013-06-24/story/pick-jacksonville-human-resources-job-fired-over-statements-council

[Cheshire Cat]

Well there you go.  Caught in the act.  How much did the Mayor know about this and why has there been no public comment about how this man's resume ended up in the hands of Human Resources?  Who put it there and why did the city rep lie about taking other applications? 

[urbaknight]

This is truly disappointing if this was done by the mayor. I can see city council doing something shady like this. I wish it were city council, then we'd have yet another screw up that we could use against them in the next election. I thought we had the right mayor, but needed a new council. So now what?

[Cheshire Cat]

Lori Mason was a department liaison for something called "the Talent Management Division".  There was clearly some managing of a questionable nature taking place.  Mason's position has already been filled.  We have a human resources department in place.  Why is there a Talent Management Division?  Who created that department and why?  A person like Ms. Mason would have too much to personally lose by lying about this hire unless she was instructed to do so by someone higher up.  I am being told that the order to do so came from the mayors office.  Lori is the one taking the hit and has likely been told to keep her mouth shut about the particulars.  No one has heard her side of the story and there is a reason for that.

[Dog Walker]

And a big round of applause for our City Council members for rising up in fury over this.  Way to go people.  This is what the division of government functions is all about; checks and balances.

[CityLife]

Lori Mason was a department liaison for something called "the Talent Management Division".  There was clearly some managing of a questionable nature taking place.  Mason's position has already been filled.  We have a human resources department in place.  Why is there a Talent Management Division?  Who created that department and why?  A person like Ms. Mason would have too much to personally lose by lying about this hire unless she was instructed to do so by someone higher up.  I am being told that the order to do so came from the mayors office.  Lori is the one taking the hit and has likely been told to keep her mouth shut about the particulars.  No one has heard her side of the story and there is a reason for that.

Yea, I think its pretty obvious that it came from the Mayor. I have a hunch that the Mayor's Office influenced the DIA Director search process too.

[Ralph W]

Is this the same Lori Mason who worked for the Jaguars from 2002 to 2009 as the Executive Assistant to the Acting GM/VP of Player Personnel?

What kind of influence does the Brown Administration have to force her to keep quiet about this affair? The news and reason for her dismissal from the City is already public knowledge so that can't be more of a sword over her head regarding future employment, especially if she is THE scapegoat.

[Cheshire Cat]

Is this the same Lori Mason who worked for the Jaguars from 2002 to 2009 as the Executive Assistant to the Acting GM/VP of Player Personnel?

What kind of influence does the Brown Administration have to force her to keep quiet about this affair? The news and reason for her dismissal from the City is already public knowledge so that can't be more of a sword over her head regarding future employment, especially if she is THE scapegoat.

Don't know if she is that same person that worked for the Jags but it is possible. 
Reasons to keep quiet in cases like this are usually tied to promises made behind the scenes, i.e.  the person leaves quietly without raising a fuss and in return they get something like another high paying job somewhere else via friends or associates.  It happens more than people realize.