More Layoff Notices & OCEA Demands Recision

MORE LAYOFF NOTICES DELIVERED TODAY
Today more layoff notices will be delivered to employees of the City of Costa Mesa. City CEO Tom Hatch sent a message to all employees yesterday announcing this fact. Subsequently, he distributed a memo clarifying just who was to receive these notices, and why. I've copied and pasted the text of Hatch's clarification below:

From: HATCH, THOMAS
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2011 10:16 AM
To: CITY-ALL

Subject: Clarification To E-Mail

Last night I sent out an e-mail to all city employees updating you on the bumping rights layoff notices that are being delivered today. I have received some questions about the information in the e-mail which I would like to clarify.

The 124 bumping rights layoff notices are not all new notices to staff. Of the 124 notices going out today there are 12 full-time employees and 29 part-time employees who will be receiving a 6 month layoff notice for the first time because they have the potential to be bumped. The remaining 83 individuals receive d their initial 6 month layoff notice in March and today they are receiving a letter to provide them with additional information about whether or not they are eligible to bump. Thus, everyone receiving an initial layoff notice because of the outsourcing is receiving a 6 month notice per the MOU; however, the effective dates in some of the layoff notices are different because of the different notification dates. Thank you to those that recommended that we provide this important clarification.

Also, my original e-mail did not include the hours that the EOC will be open today where the representations from EAP will be available. The hours today are 10 am to 5 pm.

Respectfully,

Thomas R. Hatch

Chief Executive Officer

City of Costa Mesa

77 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa, 92626

Ph. (714) 754-5328 Fax. 754-5330

thatch@ci.costa-mesa.ca.us

YET ANOTHER BLEAK DAY TODAY
Another bleak day is ahead at City Hall. You will recall the reaction to the original round of 6-month layoff notices on St. Patrick's Day, including the tragic suicide of Huy Pham and the insensitive reaction to that event by Mayor Gary Monohan.



OCEA DEMANDS LAYOFF NOTICES BE RESCINDED
Adding to the interesting day for Hatch, in coincidental bit of timing, today the Orange County Employee's Association, (OCEA) hand-delivered a letter to him from their General Counsel, Donald Drozd, demanding that the City immediately "cure and correct" the Brown Act violations by reversing its March 2, 2011 action regarding outsourcing of City services and immediately rescind all layoff notices issued to City employees pursuant to that action. You can read that letter HERE. This action was apparently taken as a result of the letter sent to the City by California Aware earlier this week and covered in detail HERE. Since the City has already said their legal team is investigating this issue, it will be interesting to see how this most recent communications from the OCEA impacts their decision. Stay tuned...