City Clerk Placed On Administrative Leave!
FOLCIK PLACED ON LEAVE
In a terse, two-sentence email Costa Mesa CEO Tom Hatch announced that City Clerk, Julie Folcik, has been placed on administrative leave pending the result of an investigation into what they refer to as "significant professional failure".Here is the complete text:
Today Julie Folcik was placed on paid Administrative Leave pending the completion of an investigation into the significant professional failure to have the Charter consolidated with the June County election as directed by the City Council. An investigation has been started.
SCAPEGOAT
This, in my opinion, is a petty move by frustrated politicians and is cons
istent with the comments attributed to the Jones Day attorney yesterday in court when he tried to throw Folcik under the bus. They've made her the scapegoat in this dismal event.PETTY PANDERING TO POLITICIANS
Shame on Tom Hatch for bending to the petulant demands of opportunistic politicians by placing a VERY professional, hardworking and loyal employee on leave at this time. This, of course, is cutting off their noses to spite their face. There is no time when a highly-skilled City Clerk is more essential than during the run-up to an election.NO WISDOM HERE
This is just one more example of how the managment of this city has fal
len off a cliff in the past 15 months. It's being run, not with wisdom and an even hand, but by the petulance of hack politicians seeking to pad their political resumes our expense.Labels: Julie Folcik, Tom Hatch
posted by The Pot Stirrer at 3/28/2012 11:28:00 AM
50 Comments:
Once again Hatch shows he is nothing more than the ultimate bun boy for the corrupt city council.
Question...Is Ms. Folick as an executive going to receive the 9 month severance pay package that the department directors receive?
I wonder who will be appointed into the "acting" city clerk position. Do the councilmen have any other unemployed friends they can help out?
I smell another expensive lawsuit coming
Finally some leadership and accountability.
If I was Hatch, I'd be packing my bags too. Julie's not the only one responsible here. There is a paper trail that will prove that. I see more legal fees on the horizon in Costa Mesa.
Yeah, this is some 3 year old crying in the grocery alise cause they didn't get their toy kinda nonsense. Riggy, Tom, Steve and Eric; stop hurting other's lives cause you don't get your way. Always suing, threatening, lying, and in Steve's case, being physical. Grow up ! You are 40+ year old men, yet you act like 14 year old mean girls.
Sadly I am not surprised. I don't think these sub-standard, waste of air, beings are given enough credit of just how low they will go. They will find something else to do that will beat this. They do every time.
Don't feel sad for her. She has lots of high fives and a job waiting for her in the union.
And how about City Attorney Tom Duarte, who was in the City Clerk's office with Riggy on that fateful Friday afternoon. Or Hatch or Francis?
This is as chickenshit as you can get.
You are right on Colin!
I hope she's calling Gloria Allred as we speak! the City will end up settling with her lawsuit.
Meanwhile, good luck with Christine Cordon! She's just as experienced as their front counter girl. She's in for a ton of stress with this endeavor! One mistake from her & she is ousted as well.
And to Spineless Hatch: Shame on you for not taking accountability! You need to get out of our town too. Since you came, Allen Roeder left and everything went to shit!
More money for Costa Mesa lawyers!!!!
They're piling on the "straws" and it's all in the news for everybody to see. The loud crack will be heard in November.
When voters go to the booth (many of them will be Dems and Independents who'll be joining the Repubs that doen't buy into this far right agenda) they'll be defanging Righeimer when his voting block is shown the door.
It will be an interesting day when he sits up there powerless. Wonder how long he'll last.
As far as Hatch goes... he's hitched his career to this Snafu wagon and when it crashes he will probably be looking for a new job. He may call himself the CEO of Costa Mesa but he's proven he's no City Manager. Good luck with putting all this on his resume.
I am pretty sure in the City Clerk job description one of the tasks of your job is to put items on the ballot. If you fail to do that, you are not doing your job.
It appears as though some people who read this blog think that it is OK to not do your job and get paid for it. I would love to be paid for not doing my job, but I don't think my employer would be happy.
Get over it. This is an epic fail and she should be fired.
Does anyone know the status of the appeal of yesterday's Costa Mesa city denied mandate ruling?
CM Observer
This is the correct move. She screwed up. She should be gone. These legal fees are all the result of her negligence--can't blame this mess-up on Council. Her $163k job is so simple. Shouldn't we be outsourcing City Clerk-some cities are sharing a clerk. It's a silly position, especially when she can't even get this right. We did it last year with the OC Fair ballot measure.
One of the duties of the city clerk is to ensure the city is in line with the State Fair Political Practices Commissions standards.
Fair political practices! What is that in Costa Mesa? What a hypocrisy for this Coun-sell to order her termination. The paid admin leave is just a formality before termination.
Hey Coun-sell, ever heard of KARMA? Continue your corruption & you will continue to fail. Blame everyone else all you want, Riggy's 15 months has devastated the city.
Wouldn't it be nice if the CEO put the Council Boys on paid leave (as small and insignificant as it is). This is all one persons fault: a short, stocky, slow-witted bald man who has a badge that says "Mayor Pro Team".
Stand-by for more legal fees if they make the mistake of firing her!!!
Outsource the councilmen and fire spineless Hatch and his little buddies Lobdell and Joyce!
These law breaking, chest bumpin, truck paintin, bankruptcy filin, brick throwin, clowns on the council need to intentionally hurt good working people.
When is enough going to be enough? When will the employees truly fight back with all they have?
Thank God for Helen and Nick for fighting for the ones who are too afraid to fight.
Julie, if you're reading this, this council and the ones responsible for throwing you under the bus will get theirs one day. I'm sorry this is happening to you. There are plenty of other places you can work to make money. Costa Mesa is a lost cause and its not worth it. I don't blame you if you choose not to come back. All they want to do is tarnish your good name to save their political agenda. They've already killed one and now they want to smear another.
I hate the councilmen!
Barry/Phil/MM is having a field day. He hasn't had it as good since before the Emancipation Proclamation.. I can see him sitting on the bowl in a relative's basement, posting away..
I like Julie and so it is hard to say but, after all this time spent on preparing the charter and going through the required legal steps, to miss this deadline is a major blunder. She was in charge of submitting it on time. Of course, the law firm and council, in hindsight, should have been following up and making sure it was done in a timely manner. Apparently they all forgot to check the progress and remind her of the deadline but they trusted her to do her job and she failed to do it. This probably falls on Hatch who is her boss who trusted her work to be done correctly. She has also had an ongoing problem in the minutes of meetings, putting in all the public comments but not putting in much substance in the way of council comments on items. Bever has asked her many times to be balanced. Now I am left to wonder if this is just a simple mistake that deserves some form of punishment or has she been trying all along to undermine council? This was not a case of Ready Fire Aim, it was a case of Ready Fail, forgot to Fire. Hope it works out well for Julie in the end, tough job but major mistake after all this. In the private sector you probably would be demoted to the mailroom. Good Luck to Julie.
'significant professional failure" is exactly what it was. Of course, the anti charter people will blame it on someone else and embrace Julie for her "error". Come on everyone, it really was a significant professional failure wasn't it?
Remember:
The only reason there is litigation about the charter on the June ballot is because the Righeimer Gang insists on trying to get it there through the court process.
i.e. If Das Riggmarshal really wanted to cut costs/expenses, he'd say, "OK, errors occurred, we'll just wait until November."
But Nooooo. He wants it NOW, his way. And we all have to pay for it.
Throughout history despots/totalitarians have always squandered treasure and lives. This is nothing new. So far we have one death. Hopefully there won't be any more, especially if fire and police are cut.
Tyrants never prevail in the long run. This one will not be the exception.
In the interests of transparency,I sent the following request to city staff:
Subject: Folcik investigation
I assume and--as a resident and taxpayer in Costa Mesa--request as strongly as possible that the investigation referenced below be carried out by an appropriate independent, impartial outside agency.
"Today Julie Folcik was placed on paid Administrative Leave pending the completion of an investigation into the significant professional failure.... An investigation has been started."
I would appreciate an answer. As I have requested in previous communications, three separate answers is fine; none is unacceptable.
Note to readers:
I have included the email addresses of the relevant staff in case anyone else has suggestions to send them.
Tom.Duarte@costamesaca.gov Bill.Lobdell@costamesaca.gov
TOM.HATCH@COSTAMESA.GOV
Is Ms. Folick a member of the union?
Wait just a minute. If you have been paying the least bit of attention, as we have. You would know that this is not the only performance issue. Although it is the Clerk's responsibility.
For us, this represents a clear pattern of poor performance. And one of many instances to sabotage process in favor of the Unions.
The Clerk's other main function is to prepare minutes.
Let's see. Speaker is a Council Hater. Verbatim. A Council Member or Council supporter. Not accurate. And also late.
We hope this is the first of a couple actions. And a warning to do their job and stay out of politics.
Julie,
Just think of the "paid administrative leave" as Spring Break '12. Go enjoy the beautiful weather and waves this week. Who knows, maybe if they win their appeal,
JRig and SMens will do keg stands at Skosh's with you... that is, if you can find somebody to hold JRig's two chins & SMens' phone...
More bending the rules to work an agenda, now that Julie served her purpose and the case was lost they suspend her the next day. Despicable.
"By having the city clerk rather than the city itself as the official plaintiff, Costa Mesa avoided obligations under state law to notify the public that it was considering the suit, to allow the public to address the City Council on the issue and to announce at a public meeting that city leaders had decided to file the suit."
Now to pursue the appeal of this ruling the city named itself as the plaintiff but how they can do that, to appeal the original ruling filed under the previous plaintiff isn't clear to me.
I'll sum it up, they can't shoot straight and when they miss they always blame someone else
Phil - until we hear the exact testimony of what happened, why are you placing the blame on her ? At work, I've seen projects get tanked cause of late emails, late informational requests, incomplete date, etc. She could have been waiting for a piece of information from the council boys, they sluffed it off, and she had to submit as is. Until we know for certain, blame can't be placed either way. If let's say 2-3 weeks out, they do a finding and yeah she screwed up, then of course, a firing has to be done, or at minimum probation. But there was no investigation here, no answer as to exactly what happened and why she was fired, so the whole thing smacks as a retaliatory move done in hasty anger. That's why people are angry with the council.
thanks sadie !! :)
Tamar, just stay out of this investigation. You are not working there, you are not elected. for once, shut up and stay away and let those in charge do their job concerning the employee who did not.
HR decisions are the job of the CM, Hatch has to take complete responsibility for this one. Otherwise he needs to step up and call out the council leadership for improperly directing a personnel matter. If council drove this, they open themselves up to personal litigation from which the city cannot protect them.
jimmy2,
I think you're attacking the wrong person. I'm one of the few people who posted without making my own guess about what happened or pronouncement on what should happen to Ms. Folcik. Some posters, in fact, presented themselves as "judge, jury, and executioner."
Your anger surprises me. In Costa Mesa, which aspires to be "the most transparent city in the country" and that has proudly paraded its "transparency" awards, how could anyone possibly be offended by the request that any investigation be done by an independent, impartial outside agency.
No one believes Hatch did this on his own, he has never done anything on his own. Just another orchestrated move by Riggy to cast blame and dispersion. The Council waited until the last minute to file, why has been discussed previously, and in haste a mistake was made, big surprise.
To blame Julie alone is weak and pathetic. Show some leadership and backbone Hatch, you Duarte are equally culpable for this, so at least take some of the responsibility, if you don't, your gone with the rest of them in November!
tamar,I am offended because you and your group tries to get a hand in everything and this is an in house matter to stay out of. They have no need for an outside agency and the way you guys play it there will be all this outcry that they are not listening if they don't appoint an outside agency just bcuz you called for it.. Sometimes you just have to let the people in charge handle their matters and leave them alone and mind your own business. Not everything is for public to weigh in on. You have the right to post calling for it of course but it more being a busybody on everything type of issue i have with you and this item
If the city is going to start terminating people for "professional failure" then Hatch should have been fired months ago. Not one employee in city hall has any respect for him nor is he trusted. He is the poster boy for a failed leader.
I'd love to see the e-trail or paper trail from the ceo's office to the clerk.
Can't imagine anything more than a couple of weeks off and a note in her employee file. Otherwise she spills the beans on the Charter lawsuit and how she was used as the plaintiff. That would expose the city and the policymakers to some possible criminal maneuvers in bringing the issue to court. Don't think these guys could want that. Could they?
My understanding is that Julie is not represented or a member of the union, she held a management position. I wonder how many of any of those approving her dismissal have always been perfect in their work or everyday life???? Julie had managers, councils reps, attornies running around, in an atmosphere of extreme stress, hostillity, and high expectations. How many of you would be able to keep focused?? Fired?? Investigation??? The young man in Florida was KILLED that mandates investigation. Julie is well aware of missing an important deadline, she has had an excellant reputation, bet her evaluations do not show much in the line of discipliny actions. But one error and out the door, even tho her "manager" knew how extremely important this issue was????? The concilmen mircromanage our city and our city staff, think they need to look in the mirrow on this one!!! I appauld Julie for being able to work diligently through the last years events in our city and at city hall.
I'm saving a special spot here in Hell for Righeimer and his henchmen.
Tuesday in Court Jones/Day argued it was simple human error, an inadvertent mistake, and should not be a reason to keep their charter proposal off the ballot even though a deadline was missed. Wednesday in Court Jones/Day argument was very similar to the City’s announcement; suddenly it was significant professional failure on the part of Julie Folcik. Julie Folcik is/was their client. This seemed very strange to me. I didn’t know why an attorney would turn on their client like that. Can an attorney even do that? I mean, obviously they can, they did, but are they even allowed to?
What really mystifies me is why turn on Julie? Besides being one of the sweetest people on the planet, she is incredibly efficient and professional, loyal, always positive, gracious and polite. I heard staff and city councilmen and members of the public were going out of their way to encourage her last week. Why throw her under the bus now? If she ends up losing her job, good luck Costa Mesa on finding anyone nearly as competent and public service oriented.
Dear Satan,
We don't want Righeimer here either! He'll call you a "union thug" and try to take over Hell!
With the way he runs things the lake of fire will get shut off..
Send the chubby one to Fontana!
Signed,
Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Kim Jong Il, Moammar Ghadafi, Uday, Qusay, and Saddam Hussein, Benedict Arnold, Jeff Dahmer, William Bonin
Could it be that Ms. Folcik was simply doing as she was told by micromanager Jim Righeimer? The last 15 months have demonstrated that Righeimer has definite ideas about how things should be run and that he wants things done HIS way (or the highway)! Typical for a WDD (Wheeler Dealer Developer).
I can easily imagine that he wanted to game the system by peeking at the “Against” arguments after they were submitted to the City Clerk so he could tweak his “For” arguments. Being a WDD, he would be savvy enough to know there would be no time pressure on him because City Clerks are allowed to submit ballot arguments (but not resolutions) to the ROV on the next business day.
What might have tripped up Mr. Too-clever-by-half Righeimer – remember he’s a WDD – is that in his zeal to stick it to the people against his charter, he might have overlooked one tiny little detail: THE RESOLUTION BY THE CITY HAD TO BE TO THE ROV BY THE DEADLINE, 5 PM FRIDAY.
It’s obvious why the deadline is, well, a line beyond which you are dead: California statute decides when resolutions shall be submitted. The ROV has no latitude. Further, city resolutions are typically adopted days and even months before the submittal deadline, so why wait for the last minute? For example, the tiny city of Auburn (east of Sacramento) adopted its charter resolution last September for this same June 2012 election.
It’s the arguments, NOT the resolution, that are allowed to be filed the next business day.
But would Righeimer be so headstrong that he would run right over professional city clerk Julie Folcik?
Remember the previous city attorney Kimberly Hall Barlow? The Pot Stirrer’s first reaction to the news of her departure was, “Uh-Oh! I wonder what she knows that we don't that would cause her to bail out just as a new municipal administration is getting started?” (http://abubblingcauldron.blogspot.com/2011/02/barlow-bails-out.html)
Subsequent events suggest that Barlow left because she wouldn’t approve of the demand by Righeimer (supported by Monahan and Bever) to issue layoff notices RIGHT NOW! instead of waiting until studies had been done to see which, if any, layoffs were prudent. She, being an experienced city attorney (and smart: she graduated third in her law school class at UCLA) would have researched the employee agreements and found TROUBLE with Righeimer’s Fire, Aim, Ready approach. I can imagine their final confrontation with Righeimer confidently saying: “It’s my way or the highway.”
Exit Barlow. Enter Tom Duarte. I don’t remember hearing him disagreeing with anything except when he told Monahan to let Terry Koken continue his rhyming comments during public comments last July 19.
While we’re at it, remember how the professional opinions of interim Police Chief Steve Stavely and consultants were summarily ignored by Righeimer/Monahan/Bever? Stavely was so incensed at the airy dismissal of his professional recommendations that he quit immediately, blasting the council as “incompetent, unskilled and unethical.”
Was he naïve? A guy who had been a police chief for over 29 years with three cities? Hardly. Then why? He explained, "I've been doing this for a very long time and I can read a budget. I am unable to sit there and accept checks for looking pretty. I can't do it. If we can't move the organization forward, that's the way it is."
With this history, the odds are that WDD Righeimer shot himself in the foot trying to game this deadline. Folcik is just the scapegoat so he can maybe keep his increasingly leaky political boat afloat.
It’s a reasonable guess that Folcik is up there with Barlow and Stavely in the pantheon of talented professionals who have been trashed by Righeimer/Monahan/Bever.
Judy,
this was sort of a BIG mistake after months of getting it ready. A DUI is a mistake also, calls for some remedy. Didn't realize she was already fired, When did u hear that? Sorry to hear that, thought maybe they would just place her on leave and investigate. that would have been the normal way to handle it.
Jimmy2chin, you can't be serious. Tamar and her "group"? You mean the citizens who are paying attention and are not pleased with the vents taking place here? That group? She has as much right to call for an independent investigation in this issue as McCarthy had in shilling for an independent investigation into "Stink Eye"; or the same council huggers who called for an independent investigation into the Pham suicide. You and the rest of these people who are so ready to follow this council and their agenda to the gates of hell are so blinded by partisan rhetoric. Without an independent investigator, who will look into this matter? The PD? It's a personnel matter and not their purview. HR? Does our HR department even have anyone qualified to do a personnel investigation? Who in that department is not subordinate to Folcik and therefore even eligible to investigate? Think it through before you spew ill thought out crap. An independent investigator might be a neeccesity when one views the matter objectively.
I can't imagine THIS Tom Hatch is the same guy Allan Roeder groomed to be his successor.
This is transparency at its finest folks. Its pretty transparent that if you make an honest mistake, costa mesa councilmen will fire you. Who's idea was it SPINESLESS HATCH? Yours or your masters? You pathetic excuse of a leader! Allan taught you better and you choose to be Riggy's puppet. How do you even walk through city hall and look employees in the eye? Keep your head down and your mouth shut Hatch. WE HATE YOU!
I'm going to call spineless puppet poster a poser. It's got the same structure, cadence and pet words of the multiple personality guy. I think he's throwing gas on the fire to try to lump reasonable arguments that the councilmen really have gone too far with over-the-line vitriol. This sounds a lot like the bitter hater who calls those he disagrees with haters. In any case, my opinion is it goes too far.
If I’m mistaken about who's behind that post, sorry. I can understand the pain. We are all reeling from the callous treatment of a loyal employee. A lot of people let off steam in this pressure cooker, but you never heard a word of that from Julie. I’d say, look at the actions, criticize the actions, don’t hate the people.
Great knife in the back, Mr Oops. you think you're such a clever writer but your brand of poison is easy to spot. Have a little huddle with your othervoices, pick your next name, and try again.
It's good for Geoff's ratings you know. This one would be at least 6comments shorter if it weren't for you.
Knife in the back? You mean the same knife that the acting city clerk is holding? Its all going to come out and its going to be an eye opener. Cant wait to see what happens today. Its always a new scandal in costa mesa!
Gericault said:"More bending the rules to work an agenda, now that Julie served her purpose and the case was lost they suspend her the next day. Despicable."
So, Julie's purpose was to lose the charter date, is that what you are saying? No wonder there is an investigation. Hopefully they depose you as to here you found out that was here purpose.
A little reality here, folks. Tom Hatch works for the Council as long as there aren’t three votes to fire him. Period.
A city manager’s job is to implement the policy directives of the council. He doesn't make policy, he just makes it happen. In theory, anyway.
However, there's not a bright line between policy and implementation ... councilmen are known to go beyond their job description (policy) and cross the bright line. Especially in Costa Mesa.
But can Hatch take complementary action and make policy? One guess as to whether Righeimer or Mensinger would let him do it.
Finally, though, in any real organization, public or private, there aren't bright lines, there are only hazy ones. A city manager needs to feed back to the council and occasionally try to massage the policy with them so it makes more sense to implement. He doesn’t have standing – unless he’s Rizzo of city of Bell – to tell the council their policy decisions stink.
Similarly, council occasionally needs to discuss implementation with the city manager in case they think he didn’t get it right according to what they wanted. They, of course, being BOSS, can tell him what they think of his implementation.
So, what I try to do when he does something I don't like is remind myself that Tom isn’t necessarily an evil man because he’s doing evil things … he just works for employers who are directing their employee to do evil things.
Phrasing it that way brings me back to Julie Folcik. Her duty is to do what her boss, Hatch, wants. And, of course, Hatch does what his boss (the council majority) wants. So the buck always goes up to the highest level. Save your ire for the councilmen.
And for those who think Hatch should “get some spine” and tell his bosses he won’t implement their evil policies … well, maybe you’ll feel different if you understand that he is not an independent operator. Nor is he Rizzo.
To the City CEO: If you need a set of balls, you can borrow a few from my kids toy collection. Be a man and do the right thing when it comes to this City, stop following all of Riggys and the Chest Bumpers orders. This City and your legacy will be around long after this JACK-ASS and his drinking buddy are gone.
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