Mayor, Council and City Manager vow to move forward
City Council discussed its City Manager performance improvement plan behind closed doors for another four and a half hours on Tuesday, emerging with what Mayor Oscar Leeser called new goals and expectations for Tommy Gonzalez.
Two weeks ago, Council unanimously approved placing the second-year city manager on a performance improvement plan, accompanied by a 13-part directive that was approved to address issues in an ethics investigation report about Gonzalez.
At 1:45 p.m. Tuesday afternoon Council finished the meeting and Leeser addressed the audience, which was mostly mostly media, calling it a “very good discussion” during which Council got answers to many of the questions they had for Gonzalez.
The City put out a news release detailing the new goals and expectations for Gonzalez. They include:
His relationship with Council, which includes updating them on special projects and ensuring staff follows through
Organizational management, focusing on restructuring and succession planning
Communications and Relations, including allocating necessary resources
Aligning staff reporting with Council goals
Ethics Ordinance focused on demonstrating accountability and ensuring ethical and honest behavior.
Also, Human Resources, re-implementing performance reviews for employees at all levels
Public relations and media, focusing on maintaining a positive relationship with the community and media
External Relations, including the importance of representing the City at all levels
Financial Management, stressing the need to reconcile financial accounts
Personal Attributes, which involves listening to ideas and building employee morale.
Both Leeser and Gonzalez stood together after the meeting, answering questions from the media for several minutes. Leeser said the performance improvement plan is now being referred to as simply “New Goals and Expectations.”
ABC-7 heard from Gonzalez Tuesday for the first time in weeks about this situation, which has been contentious at times.
“I’ve cooperated with everything,” Gonzalez said. “I would say that (Tuesday) was about goals and expectations and about coming together as a group and I think we did that today.”
Leeser added: “I always said that the first thing we needed to do is make sure we trusted and could work with each other. I think you see that as Mr. Gonzalez and myself stand here together representing the Council and the City.”
