 you can feel free to take off your mask while you're speaking and do that but we are requesting that folks do wear masks. We do have a couple of Councillors, Councillors Freeman and Hansen joining us this evening from via Zoom and then Councillor Mason has noted his recusal because of a conflict of interest and he asked that I just note that. So those are just a couple of the items before we get into the agenda itself. Now that I've taken care of those I'd like for us to have to please have a motion on the agenda. Councillor Hightower. I'd like to move to adopt the agenda. Okay, we have a motion on the agenda. Is there a second? Seconded by Councillor Paul. Is there any discussion of our agenda this evening? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favour, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, that carries and we have an agenda which brings us into the hearing itself. I will go to Attorney Richards. I'm sorry. Welcome also. This is our City Attorney's first meeting. So I just want to welcome City Attorney Richardson. So thank you for your assistance in this and welcome to the City of Burlington. Also want to recognize Councillor McGee's first meeting. So I just wanted to recognize them but Attorney Richardson, are you able to just kind of give us a little bit of a briefing on some of the next steps here and then kind of what we'll follow on for this evening? Sure. So as the agenda that you've adopted, this is opening up the Section 129. If you could just please pull in your mic. Sorry. If that's okay. This, you've now begun the Section 129 hearing. What I would recommend that the Council do first is there's really two components to a hearing like this. One is to establish the process in which you're going to follow for this hearing. And the second is to actually conduct the hearing itself. So for the first part I would recommend that the Council establish process. Now to do so and because this is a quasi-adjudicative hearing, there should probably be an opportunity for the parties if they wish to make any either objections or seek modifications to the process that's been laid out in prior letters to Council that that be done. And then I would recommend that the Council itself go into an executive session and there's three bases to do that under state law. One is the Section 1 VSA, Section 313A4 which deals with disciplinary hearings. The second is 1 VSA, Section 3131F and that is for receiving legal advice and counsel from the Board's attorney. And the third is 1 VSA, Section 312E and that is for deliberations during a quasi-adjudicative hearing which are actually outside of the public meeting. And so at that point and one of those the receiving of counsel does require a preliminary finding that it be that there be prejudice to having such a conversation in open meeting that it would cause prejudice to one or more parties. And so I recommend that the Council go in, discuss the process and discuss any issues or questions that they may have as well as, you know, this is my first meeting so I haven't had an opportunity to provide the Council with legal advice. And I also would make a note at this point while I'm the city attorney in this respect because the Board is acting as the city, I will be giving you legal advice. I would note that the Mayor has retained outside independent Council to represent him and his presentation in this. So in my role here tonight I am strictly here to give you the Council advice and legal services and not to facilitate the presentation of anything that the Administration is presenting. And so when the Council makes, finishes its deliberation that should come out of executive session publicly adopt the process and based on the process that is to adopt move forward. And presumably that would be for a merit hearing with the parties given an opportunity to present their arguments and issues. And then at the end of that process the Council may once again choose to go into deliberative executive session to deliberate on the material that's been presented to them and to make decisions on how they wish to proceed, then coming back out of the deliberative session and making a public decision. And we can certainly talk about what options those are and they would include everything from making taking a vote on the issue at hand to tabling to requesting additional information to anything that the Council feels is necessary for the Council's process in moving this forward. Wonderful. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. So following on that I would, given that the first piece that you described was any motions from Council, not City Council but legal Council regarding the process. So I would like to see if Director Richards or your legal Council have any motions regarding the process that you'd like to make at this time. Thank you President Tracy. Can I be heard properly? If you could just pull the mic in a little bit more please. Hold on. I'm Richard Cassidy. I have the honor of representing Jean Richards in this matter. We do have some procedural requests. Seeing City Attorney Richardson's letter and we do object to a number of its provisions. We think that a reasonable period of time should be allotted for this hearing. The suggestion that we can cover the issues that need to be covered in 15 minutes per side strikes me as unrealistic. We also think that the matter should be conducted under the same terms and conditions that most quasi-judicial hearings in Vermont are conducted which is to say that the matter would be conducted by taking out evidence under oath and an opportunity for Council to cross-examine the witnesses. We also ask that the City Council retain its own independent attorney to get independent advice in this matter because of course my brother Councillor Richardson from my great respect has been retained by the Mayor to be the City Attorney and not by the City Council. So we think that the City Council should have independent advice. So those are our requests. Okay thank you. Director Richardson do you have anything to add? No I don't. Okay. Mayor Weinberger or Attorney Lynn did you have anything else that any motions or requests that you'd like to make with regards to the process? No President Tracey but I would like if I might I would like to speak to the request that's been made by the Director and his attorney. The rules that have been established so far Please speak into your microphone. Yes so the rules that have been established so far so far by the Council's Attorney and with in consultation with the Council are rules that we think are sensible. The under the City Charter the Director is an at-will employee there is no due process that is offered to those kinds of employees it's really within the discretion of the Council how it wishes to proceed and we believe that it is not only fair that there be 15 minutes per side but that is in excess of what the law contemplates. I would also say this that this proceeding comes in the aftermath of an exhaustive investigation of the behaviors and the actions at the airport and it's only because of that where all sides were given an opportunity to present evidence and argument and to make the case as best they could for why the Director was either responsible for behaviors that were inconsistent with expectations or not and so our view is that there's been plenty of due process none is required by law. The Council established some rules early on communicated those standards to the Mayor and to Mr. Richards and his lawyer and we ought to proceed on that basis the fear President Tracy is this we have many people here tonight who are eager for this issue to be resolved further delay further changes in the rules we think is a disservice to the working women and men of the City of Berlin. Please hold the applause please hold the applause we need to maintain decorum. If I if I may be further heard President Tracy briefly thank you I would respectfully differ from my colleague about whether my client is an at-will employee he is not an at-will employee under the standards typically applicable to Vermont law his employment is regulated by the Charter and the language of the Charter that the City relies upon in this matter says that he may be removed at its pleasure if the if the City if it should determine if the Council should determine that it that he is no longer effectively serving the City so there is a standard and we the Director has a term of office of one year he is not by any means an at-will employee that's simply an accurate reading of the law I'd also say that I agree with with counselor with my brother attorney Lynn I'm getting confused between the role of legal counsel and city counselors here but we'll try to stick with the attorney I do agree with them on one point and that is that enough delay has ensued and it's time to get this matter resolved tonight so although we are asking for greater procedural protections we are asking the Council to implement those protections this evening and to proceed to resolve this this case at this time thank you okay so to my understanding you are asking for us to address those and not to and to address those and you would like for the hearing to proceed with any changes that are made tonight we are eager to get this resolved there's been enough agony I must also comment that the suggestion that adequate due process has been given is simply not correct my client was interviewed by the investigator for 30 minutes on the phone without knowledge of the specific allegations against him and we've never seen those specific allegations so I can't agree that adequate new process has been given thank you okay now that we've heard the the motions and the the specific process objections as well as the response from the mayor's legal counsel attorney Richardson has advised us that has advised the city council to go into executive session to receive legal advice regarding the process so we have a two-step process for going into executive session one of which is is making a finding based on Vermont state statute and then based on that finding going into executive session so Councillor Paul are you able to please make a motion on that on on a finding that would allow us to go into executive session to discuss the process for the hearing I am I believe that it is the on the recommended action that's on board docs under council deliberation is that correct yes okay thank you very much so I would move that the council go into executive session to discuss a disciplinary or dismissal action against a public officer or employee pursuant to one vsa section 313 a for disciplinary hearing one vsa 313 1f to receive legal advice from council and one vsa 312 e deliberative exemption for deliberations made within the context context of a quasi-judicial hearing thank you we have a motion on a finding is there a second sure council I wondered if the I thought our process was going to be to go into executive session discuss the process come back out and then have the deliberative portion of it was I incorrect in that because the motion was made with the deliberate bit exemption which attorney Richard are you able to clarify please I would love to clarify so there are actually going to be two deliberative sessions as I said before there's two issues here they have to decide upon one is the process and one is the merits you are allowed to go into deliberative session under 312 e to to consider the question of process there are some questions that have been raised and objections by attorney Cassidy that would be appropriate for you to deliberate on in this then at the end of the merits hearing there would be the second I'd also make a second point that you may want to table this motion to then insert another motion about a finding that there would be prejudicial it would be prejudicial to conduct an attorney-client conversation in in public at this time as required under 313 1f you have the floor I'd like to second and make an amendment as attorney Richardson just stated to add that to the motion okay yep so we have a a second on the original motion and then councillor shannon has made an amendment to add in that other the other piece per attorney Richardson's council is there a second to that motion on the amendment seconded by council high tower any further discussion on that amendment okay hearing none let's go to a vote all those in favour please say aye aye aye any opposed no president tracy I have not seen we have a council another councillor who is joining us via zoom and I I haven't seen the other councillor who's joining us via zoom I did hear councillor Freeman and I was able to check in with councillor Freeman I'm on I'm on I'm here I said aye okay sorry okay so so we have is there a further discussion on the amendment okay let's go to a vote all those in favour please say aye aye any opposed okay that carries is there any further discussion now we're back to the original motion on the the finding is there further discussion on that finding okay seeing none let's go to a vote on that all those in favour please say aye okay any opposed that carries unanimously now based on that finding councillor Paul are you able to offer a motion to go into executive session yes based on the finding I would move to go into executive session and normally we do specify who is coming into executive session with us I believe that that would be attorney Richardson and is there anyone else that we should be adding to that just the council itself okay thank you thank you seconded by councillor Shannon any discussion on that motion to go into executive session okay seeing none all those in favour please say aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously and we are going to be moving into executive session so for members of the public if you could please clear the room and we will come back and let you know when you can come back into the room once we for the determination thank you out of executive session we are now determination with regards to the process the way we'll motion and I'm going to go to councillor Shannon the process councillor Shannon thank you President Tracy I move that the council shall give each side up to 45 minutes for presentation including the option to reserve some of that time for rebuttal all witnesses shall be put under oath there will be no cross examination of witnesses afterwards each councillor will have up to four minutes for questions that includes the answers to the questions all other requests or objections are hereby denied thank you for the motion councillor Shannon is there a second seconded by councillor hightower any further discussion councillors councillor hanson yeah just to clarify that when we just to clarify in the motion the four minutes for councillors we mean city councillors not not attorneys correct correct is that councillors with the c thank you very much councillor hanson perfect councillors with two c's in fact yeah okay any further discussion from the council okay seeing none we'll go to a vote all those in favour of adopting the process outlined by councillor Shannon for the hearing please say aye aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously and we have adopted the process for the hearing we will begin with hearing hearing from the the mayor and the mayor's council with regards to their side attorney lin did you seek to reserve any of the 45 minutes that you have for for your argument to for rebuttal would you like to reserve any of that time for rebuttal i would so what i would for presentation to the council i presume it's going to be well less than half an hour and at that point i would reserve whatever remaining time i have sure okay thank you for that we'll um we're setting the the clock right here attorney cassidy question about about procedure so i would assume from what i heard of the resolution that that means that should the mayor choose to make a statement should my client choose to make a statement those would be under oath we would not get to question either of the opposite numbers and you'll hear argument from attorney lin and myself which will not be under oath is that what you intend yes thank you appreciate the clarification okay thank you so we have the clock set here this is where we'll be keeping the time so that you have full view of the time that's that's that's allotted to you and the ceo will be keeping track of the time that is left over for rebuttal we if you would like it is helpful if folks are we're going to ask if you would like to reserve time it's helpful for us to do that if you know just in terms of the in terms of setting the timer but if as councillor lin had our attorney lin had just said we will we can keep track of any remaining time that is that is there until you're able and you're able to use that for rebuttal up to the point at which you've exhausted that is that clear that's fine one logistical point fine i just like to plug in my computer so i don't lose it sure and one other thing that i'd like to just address just before we get started is that we did hear some applause before i would really appreciate if everybody can just please remain silent throughout the the proceedings this evening and just maintain the decorum of the body we really need to maintain that in order to really to reach our decision and to really stay focused on the issues at hand so please do not please everybody who's here refrain from reacting to things that are said with any sort of verbal noise or anything audible we really need to stay focused at the matters at hand so i just really request that we'd really appreciate that as we kind of go forward okay so i will turn it over to um attorney lin thank you very much so i i've prepared a powerpoint and catherine perhaps um you could put that on the screen and if we could do it in slide um function that would be terrific can you please please start the timer so good good evening again to everybody my my name is pietro lin i've been asked to serve as council for the administration tonight um the purpose of this meeting as you know is for you as a city council to make a decision about whether to terminate the employment please lean into the mic yeah closer yeah whether you as a council will terminate the employment of mr richards next slide please so before we begin i think it's important to recall the law that is going to govern this process to put it in greater context what we know is perfect what we know is this is the city council governs both the appointment and the termination of department heads the the mayor has the power to appoint department heads with confirmation by a majority of you and when it comes to the corollary which is terminating department heads the language is pretty clear that this is not a fore cause determination the department heads serve at your and the mayor's pleasure that is a standard that requires nothing more than a determination that is a political determination by you that the department head in this case the director of aviation no longer effectively is serving the city that's the decision that you at the end of the day at the end of this process have to make so what do we know about the position of director of aviation what we know is this that it's it's a position that is a department head this is the person who resides at the burlington international airport and is responsible for the supervision of many employees we will talk about how many in a moment he is he is in this case he was reappointed on a yearly basis since 2012 that's when he was appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council maybe not all of you on the council tonight but that was done in 2012 at least on an interim basis followed in 2013 and every year since on a permanent basis the the position reports directly to the mayor and you'll see that on this power point presentation there are some indications about exhibits and the exhibits that i'm referencing are exhibits that we have submitted in advance to you and that you can review at your leisure i i have tried in important parts of those exhibits to include quotations so that you don't have to scurry back and pull up the documents but i want you also to understand that these are not things we are making up they are in the documents that govern this position that is the the job description you'll see that there are certain parts of the policy personal policy manual that govern but that's what the exhibit reference is referring you to the director is responsible for enforcement and application of the city's policies at burlington international airport now why why is that an important issue that we include as a bullet point in this presentation it's because the the personnel policy manual is an important piece of evidence in understanding what are the duties and responsibilities what are the management philosophies what are the values of the city of burlington when it comes to the treatment or in the alternative the mistreatment of employees in short the director is the leader on the ground making decisions on a day-to-day basis at burlington international airport and he needs to be held accountable for those decisions both good and bad and we're not here today to argue to you that that there are not accomplishments that the director has made during the time he has been at burlington international airport we are here to talk about some very serious concerns that were raised investigated weighed considered and decided so what is the job of the director when it comes to these employees at burlington international airport what we know is this from the job description he is responsible for overall direction and supervision and evaluation of burlington international airport he is the chief executive officer of the airport and the buck stops for those functions on his desk he directly supervises six people and he manages the rest of the workforce there that that workforce is about 50 employees you'll see one of the exhibits provided to you is an organizational chart it identifies the position held by various employees and also who those employees are those valued employees so so those are the people he is supervising and then the question becomes so what are the what are the values what are what are the directives provided to somebody who holds this position how what what do we as a city expect of them in the way that they treat the people they are responsible for and the city's policy manual expresses it as well as could be expressed in a way that is clear in a way that's consistent with what i think this city council values would be what we see is that it says it is important for employees to feel they are valued members of the team and so i ask all of you as we as we march through this presentation tonight we need to consider how do we treat valued members of our team and and how in fact we're valued members of our team treated the city is committed to establishing a harmonious workplace where all employees can work at their fullest potential and i bolded this because i thought it was critical in an atmosphere of mutual respect what else does the literature in this case the policy manual tell us about the responsibilities of department heads and supervisors when they are working with our valued employees well it says this they're responsible for impartial and equitable administration of city policies so any suggestion that a department head does not know what the policies are or is not aware of their responsibilities under this personnel policy manual is wholly inconsistent with their obligations they must know because it is their responsibility in this case the director's responsibility to administer this manual at the airport and to the extent that he didn't to the extent that he came up short then he must be accountable for that and then the final part is this that that that employees are to be are to be encouraged to actively participate in a cooperative management process and what i see when i look at your manual and it is an exhibit that you have in front of you that we submitted what i see in your manual time and time again is a commitment to a harmonious workplace where people are treated with respect and they are encouraged there is collaboration and cooperation there is not confrontation and denigration and so again as we move through this presentation the question you must ask yourself is whether the standards the high standards that we have set for ourselves have been met at the airport here is another statement from your manual city employees are expected to perform their duties in a conscientious and professional manner that will not adversely affect job performance of others or the efficiency of city services employees are expected to be courteous to all members of the general public and co-workers again a consistent theme in all of your policies around the expectations of people who are working under your auspices and again to the extent that these high standards are not met there must be consequences so what are these leadership rules and i'm sorry that it's small so i will read it to you what what i discerned from your rules are this one be respectful toward your employees don't abuse that power differential when you're a supervisor don't be a bully foster a collaborative and supportive work environment encourage employees to respectfully raise disagreements right we don't we don't have a dictatorship we have a work environment where employees are encouraged to raise good ideas or disagreements respectfully and they are valued for that effort behave professionally while in the workplace including your choice of language do not take city property for your own benefit do not create an appearance of impropriety if there is any question whether an action is proper right if i am choosing to do something and there is some question in my mind or should be then i should ask be transparent actions inconsistent with these rules undermine leadership right your policies suggest that if somebody cannot act in conformance with these rules these are not hard rules to follow if they cannot then they are not acting as a leader as contemplated by the city of burlington so what happened here in june of 2021 the city became aware of some concerns serious concerns on june 30th the mayor authorized placing mr richards on administrative leave with concurrence of the chief administrative officer and the hr director the basis for the leave was complaints and this is directly from the document placing him on leave his use of city resources and other complaints and as we undertook no as the investigator undertook this investigation the other complaints became increasingly concerning and clearer evidence of serious serious issues in the management style and the actions of the director at the airport with respect to valued employees the city commenced an independent investigation with an outside investigator well let me stop for a moment and talk about that why why would the city commence an investigation with an outside investigator because this was a serious matter because we knew ultimately this was a possibility and it we did not want somebody who had known or worked with the director for any period of time to engage in this investigation we wanted somebody with expertise in both investigation employment matters somebody who had a sterling reputation to take responsibility for this serious matter and that is what we did and the city paid money to this independent investigator and trusted in her good work and as I will show you later the work was indeed good and during that time mr richards was on paid administrative leave now let me talk to you this about this for a moment I heard mr casady who I considered to be an excellent lawyer talked to you about agony about the agony that mr richards suffered by virtue of his paid administrative leave paid administrative leave as a status for employees who there is no discipline yet it is a status for employees to be asked to leave the workplace where their behaviors are under investigation and there is some danger both to them and others that the investigation may be tainted by virtue of their actions while still in the workplace where they may intimidate witnesses by virtue of just being in the workplace and so as a consequence what we do is we take people out of the workplace understanding they have done nothing wrong or there has been no finding yet that they have done something wrong and they get paid full benefits and they get paid full compensation salary during the time they're out no decision has yet been made so that is the status that mr richards found himself on during the time he was paid on paid administrative leave so the investigator in this case was an attorney named Anita Tinney who specializes in HR matters she and you will see this in the report the report here I reference it as exhibit 11 undertook an investigation of two things the first was whether there had been misuse of city resource of city property the second was whether mr richards mistreated airport employees during the time he was the director attorney tinney interviewed numerous employees and I know that because she says so including and this is important she interviewed every single member of the management team directly supervised by mr richards and even past employees who had been members of that management team no stone there was left unturned to get to the truth of this matter there has been no complaint until this very moment from mr richards attorney that there was any problem with the adequacy or sufficiency of this expert outside investigators investigation in fact there are voluminous documents there are numerous interviews there were this was an investigation to get to the truth and that's exactly what happened so what did attorney tinney conclude she concluded that there were serious serious violations of city policies with respect to the treatment of employees and this is her language bolded on this slide corroborated by multiple witnesses mr richards regularly engages in behavior that employees find humiliating and offensive so then the question becomes this it is easy to throw out those words or maybe it's not easy but those are just words and without examples it's very difficult to understand the scope and the nature and frankly the severity of the offensive and humiliating behaviors what were they yelling and screaming at employees calling an employee a son of a bitch on multiple occasions that is her finding barking orders and using derogatory language particularly use of the word f i will not use it calling employees useless and ungrateful to their face saying i run the goddamn airport and what i say goes yelling i am the effing director of aviation to employees telling employees to shut their mouths calling an employee's work donkey work screaming at a subordinate look at me yelling at employees from his office summoning them to come running to him make sure in his words in action to let you know you are disposable and he's the big dog refers to staff as worthless pieces i won't read it and effing scum so that wasn't all stating that all those mfers can get covid for all i care referring to staff safety laying into employees or ripping them a new one when he disagrees or doesn't like something screaming at employees that they don't know what they're doing inviting some managers into performance conversations about their peers which they found humiliating those are the examples of what miss tinney found and what did mr richards tell miss tinney about all that he explained he could be intense but it wasn't his intention to mistreat employees he admitted using f bombs his language at work but denied the alleged mistreatment of employees and i want to stop for a moment and i want you to think about this when confronted with his behaviors when given an opportunity to be a leader leaders accept responsibility they apologize for their mistakes and then they learned from them what mr richard said was it's not true the investigator found those denials the statements it is not true to be incredible she did not believe him and the question is why here's why she spoke to among others all members of the directors management team and even past members and according to her report every witness interviewed confirmed at least some element of the problematic allegations no witness believed that mr richards was unaware of how his behavior impacts others the witnesses all believe he intends to intimidate subordinates and what about this issue of misuse of property and as i said to you before just to refresh your memory you do have rules in your policy manual and you have your policy manual as an exhibit those rules say this the director cannot use city property for his own personal uses there are specific and known benefits right employees have specific benefits and they are identified in your personnel policy manual the director should not be secretly creating special rules or special benefits for himself and nobody else those are those are the provisions of your policy manual and guess what even appearances of impropriet are bad they are not acceptable because when you are a director when you are a department head for a municipality like the city of burlington where we hold ourselves to the highest of high standards around honesty and integrity even the appearance of impropriety ought to be avoided at all costs so what do we know from attorney tinnie's investigation we know that he used gasoline purchased by the city for his personal automobile without paying for it and you might say to me well it's just one or two times or three times but what we discovered was it was 59 times over a period of six months he used the city car wash for his personal personal automobile without paying for it now there there are some explanations for it and maybe there's only an appearance of impropriety but i would suggest to you that any competent department head any leader would understand that this would create an at least at a minimum an appearance of impropriety and at maximum something more so what did what did the director say when confronted with this information how did he explain what is apparently inexplicable he said he had the right to take the city's gas because former directors had cars he claimed that he drove his car around the airport and that justified him using city gas having gassed up 59 times he claimed the car wash needed to be used and other employees were told to use the car wash also so it wasn't a special benefit for the director but that's not consistent with common sense or the evidence he was the only employee who used city gas or the car wash for his own personal vehicle no evidence is there to support the contention that he was entitled to a car provided by the city remember the director had been on the job since 2012 he did not have a car he was not provided gas and only only in this period did he decide he was entitled to gas the city personnel manual doesn't contemplate free gas or free car washes as a benefit the director didn't ask for authorization to fill up his car with gas to and didn't didn't tell the city he wanted to justify it because he would sometimes drive around the airport or because people in the past who in his position had city cars he didn't disclose the use of gas or the car car wash to the city by him for personal uses until the time of this investigation so those those are the items that are in the report that are significant and so then the question becomes what what is the argument that we anticipate is going to be raised about why it's not bad or it should be overlooked or it's out of context well this is this is where we started at best treating people the way the director treated people at the airport it is unprofessional it's exceptionally poor judgment from a leader it is behavior that we can all agree should not have occurred and at worst at worst something very bad indeed at worst he acted in a manner that was intolerable in any workplace and intentionally intentionally flouted the city's rules the city's policies which he knew as the person responsible for enforcing and applying those rules at the airport now he may argue that he was very good at other parts of his job and I we're not here to argue that the director didn't do some things well very well I think that we can all celebrate his many successes at the airport but in the end in the end we have to decide whether the behaviors identified in the tinny report support continued leadership of the men and women who work there after tonight he's argued already and he may again argue I want more process right process arguments and we all know that process arguments really are about distracting people from substance and the process arguments here are well I want to cross examine witnesses and I want to I want to bring in live witnesses and I want to see more documents and that's what we saw in the lead up to this but the reality is this there was a careful and thorough investigation Mr. Richards was interviewed by this independent investigator he was given every opportunity to acknowledge his mistakes mistakes that were corroborated by every other person that this investigator talked to and he didn't in fact he denied it he did not accept responsibility he undermined his leadership maybe he will seek to blame others for his bad choices right we we we were not able to to properly discipline people at the airport because the union got in the way or or the mayor wasn't appropriately supervising me what I did those may be arguments that are raised by him he will ask you perhaps for an opportunity to speak to the people who raise these concerns about him who spoke reluctantly carefully with trepidation because of fear of retaliation and reprisal to this outside investigator and maybe he wants them to come here so that he can engage in hostile questioning and public humiliation Mr. Richards had due process and he is not entitled to anymore remember at the beginning of this conversation what I said to you was that this this is a decision you must make under the city charter and the city charter says that the director all department heads serve at your pleasure that is not that is not a for cause standard the only question for you is whether based on what you know based on what you heard based on this investigation the director ought to continue to lead the 50 employees at the airport so this is the question for you is it time for a new leadership at burlington international airport the mayor's made a judgment that it is he's decided that dignity and respect and cooperation are important values that is more important than any other thing that may happen at the airport that the mayor has decided that despite the many good accomplishments over these years what what happened to our employees the actions of the director are too much and he cannot lead he has demonstrated the worst kind of judgment both in terms of the way he treated people and in the way he summarily appropriated city property the mayor has the right under the charter to recommend that's what he does his job is to recommend to you and his his judgment has been that he values people over the other successes that the airport may have had and now he has asked you to do your job under the city charter and that is to consider what you know based on the documents provided to make a decision about whether you want people who have done the things found in that report to lead your departments if the answer is yes if that's acceptable behavior then I think you know what to do but we encourage you we've done or we fulfilled our obligation here by providing you with the information you need to make a decision a sound decision and we encourage you to protect and support and affirm our employees thank you please stop the timer so 16 24 is the amount of time that is remaining for the mayor and mayor's council for rebuttal that noted you please reset the clock to 45 minutes would you like to reserve any time for rebuttal in advance or would you like us to set for 45 I have understood that the mayor was going to speak is that attorney lin not at this moment thank you attorney casady just one second i'll let counselor take her seat if we could just please take that powerpoint down thank you one second please please begin when you're ready thank you tracy I will begin to repeat I'm Richard Cassidy I have the honor of representing Jean Richards in this matter and I'm proud to do so let me say to you that we want to avoid process please speak into the microphone let me say to you that I don't want to focus at least at the beginning on process arguments except to the extent that I have to but I want to begin by pointing out some shortcomings in attorney lin's presentation what we heard presented as facts and evidence are the conclusions of the investigator it's been suggested that the evidence behind those conclusions has been presented to you that is not true you have not seen the statements of the witnesses you have not heard what they had to say to the investigator you have heard what the investigator concluded was true we have not heard what the witnesses had to say we have not seen any notes that were taken that relate to what the witnesses had to say we have not heard any recording or transcript so we do not know exactly what the witnesses had to say and I think that is a very important argument albeit a process argument let me go right to the heart of this matter remember the gene richards has been at the airport for nine plus years it may be that people who wish to be critical of gene can pick out words that he said and phrases that he said and present them to you as though they are typical of gene richards behavior that does not make it true the gene richards that I know the gene richards who has the support of many members of this community many of whom have written to you is not behaved in that fashion yes gene is an aggressive and passionate man yes gene has been responsible for holding accountable 50 sometimes 60 employees at the city but I wonder how many of us could do that for nine years without being in a position where some people could pick out some inadvertent and inappropriate language and be critical of us so let me go to the heart of these allegations as best I can understanding that as I speak I haven't seen anything but conclusions not facts and not evidence I want to say to you that you should dispose of this gas allegation summarily quickly the mayor knows perfectly well the gene is not guilty of any wrongdoing whatsoever with respect to this issue in an effort to get gene to resign the mayor sent us a proposed statement announcing gene's resignation we have shared that statement with you it is our exhibit d in that statement the mayor accurately summarizes the investigator's conclusion from the report on the gas issue he says the investigator concludes that Mr. Richards did not misuse city resources when gene refused to resign the mayor raised the issue again lackening the reputation of a good and honest man as the report makes clear this didn't happen in the abstract yes it's true when gene started the director had a car and gene decided he didn't need a car and didn't want a car and the city was in the airport was in distress and he turned it over to the maintenance to be used in the maintenance department gene in his nine and a half years with the with the airport never claimed mileage or other expenses for the operation of his own car for city purposes he used his the mayor suggests that when gene used city gas he should have sought the mayor's approval it's easy to adopt high tone standards and apply them to others but let me ask you this whose approval would gene Richards have sought he would have sought the mayor's approval the mayor was gene's supervisor the mayor was not easily accessible to gene Richards when gene requested a meeting he would almost always wait at least a month and sometimes four months before the mayor could find time to put him on his schedule gene was empowered to run the airport a 20 million dollar a year operation for the city's benefit and he did so this gasoline issue as i recall involves gasoline in a tank with a total value of 15 000 dollars i'm not saying gene's use was 15 000 dollars i'm saying that's the total subject matter within which this fits gasoline at the airport is 15 is a 15 000 dollar line item in a 20 million dollar budget in the investigators own words she says note that none of the parties interviewed alleged that mr. Richards has engaged in any of the behavior for his own gain for example there was no allegation that he has enriched himself financially how did this happen you may be asking yourselves well we are living here i am looking at you i see you in your masks as we are still in the covid epidemic at the airport there was a facility that was under development to be turned over to the rental car agencies for their use in gassing vehicles and washing vehicles quickly when covid struck there was no lease arrangement with those car rental companies there was 15 or 16 000 dollars worth of gasoline in a tank in the ground gasoline in a tank in the ground that was about to become a liability for the city of burlington if it wasn't gotten out gene richards arranged to have all of the airport vehicles the official vehicles use that gasoline in order to get it out of the tank he offered to have the city police department use that gasoline but they had another source he told his employees that they could use that gasoline and yes he used that gasoline himself he was operating the the airport out of his car he was spending hours and hours a day in his car because covid was ongoing and no one who was not an essential worker was welcome inside the airport so this is a really rather cynical allegation against gene richards can you fault him on the theory that the appearance of impropriety was created well the appearance of impropriety i'm afraid is a bit like beauty it rests in the eye of the beholder it is easy for any of us to get on our moral high horse and say well what the director did wasn't really wrong but it looks wrong and that's forbidden by the policies of the city but is that really the way you want to deal with your employees is that the kind of 2020 hindsight that ought to apply to a director who served this city faithfully for nearly a decade and who like the rest of us was struggling to manage an enterprise in the midst of a covid pandemic i submit to you this charge is scurrilous and it should be disregarded now let me deal with the real issue and it's not as easy an issue for us it's the question of should gene be be fired for allegedly yelling at employees i have no doubt having worked with gene in the last few weeks that he might have gotten excited from time to time and yelled at somebody let me ask you this what standard should he be judged by what standard can each of us meet is any one of us who is responsible for the management of others able to say oh i've never shouted at someone to make a point i've never spoken out of turn i've never said something when i look back on it i realized was unkind well maybe you can say that i know that i can't i manage a small staff i have pressures sometimes i say things i shouldn't and i think most of us know that that's part of life and that if you make a mistake the right thing to do is fix it if you can we all make mistakes it's human nature to do that and it's important also to keep in mind the fact that we'll come back to in this presentation and that is that when it comes to communication few of us are really very good at monitoring the way in which our communication is perceived by others someone says you were shouting were you shouting were you talking loud do you think you were talking in a normal voice this is a matter of judgment it's a subjective issue let's look at gene's behavior in context don't look side of the fact that gene is a good person a person of integrity and accomplishment don't look don't lose sight of the fact that he has managed this airport effectively and successfully for nearly a decade if things are so bad how has the airport gone from being so unsuccessful to being successful the safety and convenience of the public depends upon the operation the efficient operation of the airport and gene has seen to that thousands of people pass through the airport millions of dollars are involved many thousands of those visitors of those people are visitors to our community here for the first time and the reputation of our community is very much at stake I would say this to you the city human resources department did not function effectively to aid gene in his role as a manager of city employees gene will tell you himself that he rarely would make a personnel decision maybe never I hate to say never hardly ever without consulting with the human resources department that's his nature in the last 20 months the stress of operating the airport has been exaggerated by the pandemic as I said earlier most of that for most of that time over the early part of that time gene was essentially operating out of his car and for most of that time the numbers of passengers passing through the airport was very low that's very significant for for the revenue of the airport department but it doesn't reduce the basic functions that had to be performed and had to be performed with fewer staff than ever because people were asked to stay away from their jobs if they weren't essential employees gene successfully led the department through that crisis and don't forget either in talking about this the gene richards is an employee too he also deserves to be treated with the fairness and respect that my colleague attorney lin so elegantly showed you on his power points I believe that every person in this room at least every person within my field of view based upon what I know of you agrees that employees should be treated fairly and with respect and gene is within my field of view and I know he believes that too the mayor has talked the talk of fair and reasonable treatment of employees but he has failed to walk the walk of fair and reasonable treatment when it comes to gene richards the process he established for this investigation has not been a fair one it took some 48 days for the city to complete its external its external investigation yes gene was receiving pay and benefits and gene richards the man of action was sitting at home in agony awaiting the outcome waiting really to be confronted with the substance of the allegations and despite what what attorney lin says he really wasn't confronted with the whole list of things conclusions that are stated in the report when when the mayor received the investigation he demanded gene's resignation gene wanted to see a copy of the report the mayor the the apex of this system that's supposed to treat people fairly and with respect refused to give him copy of the report then he invited gene to come in and talk with him he demanded his resignation and he read to him a few snatches of the report and if you look at it I think you can imagine which ones they were when gene wouldn't resign without seeing the report the mayor arranged to let gene read a copy of it so long as he came to my office and read it in my presence and he could not have a copy of it and he could not take a copy home to discuss with his wife gene has dyslexia as many of you may know and the mayor knows that gene is not that effective reading is a challenge for gene but he demonstrated no compassion for gene in terms of the way he dealt with this report why did the mayor do this I think if you read the full report you will understand why the mayor had decided he wanted gene's resignation and he didn't want gene to see the full report the reason he didn't want gene to see the full report is he didn't want gene to understand that of the six categories of things that were investigated against him and all but one of those things he had been found not guilty of any wrongdoing in his dealings with gene did the mayor meet the standards he tries to say gene should meet no he didn't he raised his voice with gene seeking his resignation he threatened gene in seeking his resignation he has continued to pursue gene's resignation or termination without even to this day providing us with the background documents that surround this report where are the investigators notes where are the interviews where are the tapes recordings of those interviews or was the investigation which attorney lin describes as so thorough so slip shot that there that none of those things exist and you have only the conclusions to rely upon this is not a fair way to operate as to any employee not gene richards and not any of the people who work for him or work for the city there is one with one inadvertent exception which i'll discuss with you later in my remarks all you have are the investigators conclusions not the specifics of the statements that were made about gene how could gene in terms of deciding whether to resign evaluate his status without knowing how can you evaluate the accuracy of the investigators conclusions without knowing the underlying facts except for department heads and elected officials every other employee in this city has a right not to be disciplined or terminated except for just cause every union employee in this city and most of our employees our union employees can implement those rights through grievance and arbitration the city has a progressive discipline system but it has not followed that system as to gene richards employees who make mistakes in most cases are corrected and given a chance to perform and that's only right that did not happen with reference to gene richards why not because the mayor is gene supervisor and the mayor failed to meet his responsibilities as a supervisor we have seen gene's personnel file and we're happy to have you take a look at it it contains not a critical word it contains not not a single evaluation of the mayor as such of gene richards the mayor has left us and you largely in the dark about facts who said what to whom and under what circumstances and in what context and in what tone you don't know that you can't fairly judge the conclusions the investigator has reached my mistake mayor provided one document and one document only it really goes through the substance of the charges if you followed the process carefully as it went along this week of the exchange of requests for information you would find you would know that the mayor designated one document as an exhibit formally known as exhibit seven and then withdrew it and substituted another document for that exhibit the mayor's former exhibit seven is now our exhibit I ask you to look carefully at exhibit E it addresses the facts the substance of the charges does it make gene look like an angel no it doesn't the document is the result of an investigation of a grievance that was filed by a city employee that kicked this whole process off it's the it's the grievance which we understand as best we know led to the confidential investigation the city's director of human resources Karen Durfee albeit a person who is relatively new in her job investigated this grievance it's revealing in several respects to avoid unnecessarily exposing employees' publicity we have redacted from our version of the exhibit exhibit E the names of the employees involved and substituted employee numbers if you have the original of mayor's exhibit seven you will know who the employees are if you read the document you'll see three allegations against gene first employee number two claims she was denied union representation in a meeting she characterized as disciplinary if you read the report you can see that it was not gene richards it was another employee employee three another manager who told her that she did not need union representation if there is fault to be laid on that score it lies not gene richards doorstep it lies at the doorstep of employee three we also know that employee two the subject of this conversation was upset about the conversation because there was discussion of the professionalism of emails the employee had written surely this is a fair topic of conversation between supervisor and employee but you don't know and what we don't know is whether the employees upset about this conversation was reasonable or unreasonable if you could please speak up into the microphone i think some counselors are so sorry we want to be heard thank you what we don't know is whether the employees upset was reasonable or unreasonable second you have a story that on may 20 2021 gene stated you want to fight while gesturing with his hands and holding them up like a boxer to witnesses what is this all about gene doesn't deny the event but he would tell you and he will tell you that he was only joking perhaps he should not have done that in fact i think he shouldn't have whether he should have or shouldn't have depends a great deal upon the context of the relationship between the manager and the employee and the meaning which the employees would likely attach to what was intended as a joking gesture with hindsight it's easy to say that gene misjudged how his comment has comment and gesture would be taken but do any one of you really believe the gene was challenging one of his employees to a fight do any one of you really believe that the employee thought that that's what gene meant that's just not credible now it wasn't an exercise of good judgment but is it a firing offense we'll discuss as we'll discuss later the city's own director of human resources did not think so thoroughly we have the allegation of employee six the substance of her allegation is that gene is angry he tells his staff not to send anything to employee six what's this all about gene would tell you that employee six was in her 26th month of a performance improvement plan for failure to do her job accurately and on a timely basis why was she in her 26th month of a performance improvement plan you may justly ask because gene had asked human research the human resources department to assist him in working with this employee hopefully to transfer the employee to another place within city employment where she could be successful or if that could not occur and the employee could not do the job to terminate the employee under the terms and conditions of the city's arrangements with employees in that category the human resources department failed to assist gene in resolving that issue and what's this about gene saying don't send things to employee six well the employee may have thought gene was angry and that's why he said that but that's not why gene did that because the employee was having difficulty finishing the work so rather than having more work piled on top of the employee's burden gene told other employees not to send anything to her until she was ready for more work is it any wonder that this employee was upset after 26 months on a performance improvement plan is it any wonder that a difficult employment situation festered when the employee was and the employee was left angry and upset no it's not any wonder it's exactly what happens if human resources are not properly managed and it's not surprising that the employee blames gene for this gene was the face of holding her accountable but the fact is that the real source of the problem was the failure of your of our human resources department to deal with this problem and manage human resources effectively then of course there's much more detail about these three cases that we know some facts about only by mistake I would add again there are more there there's more detail that we could go into there and there's similar detail that we think could be discussed with reference to the basis of all these conclusions that are stated in the report but how can we talk with you about them when we don't really know what happened when we don't really know what was said I want you to take one more note of our exhibit e the exhibit that the mayor did not want to be a part of these proceedings having looked into these matters what did the city's director of human resources think should be done the answer is there for all of you to see let me read it to you it is my recommendation due to the nature of the complaint and corroboration around the facts of the grievance that are written notice of correction corrective action be administered as outlined in section 8.8 of the city's of the comprehensive policy manual as derpy went on to say during my conversations a number of things were made clear director richards needs to be far more mindful of the impact of his own behavior his intent in much of my time speaking with him does not match the perception of the employees I spoke with including his managing staff the employees whom I spoke with all had some amount of respect and care for director Richards but have grown wary of behavior in addition to a written notice I recommend that director Richards be encouraged to take some time away from his duties though he prides himself and not using benefit time self-care is paramount as we navigate new challenges and a workforce whose values are clearly changing by caring for himself my hope is that he can reflect on the importance of his health and the relationships he's worked hard to cultivate mr. Durf and miss derpy's judgment represents I would suggest to you a fair and reasoned interpretation of the circumstances that she found gene had worked himself to the bone during the pandemic in an effort to advance the interests of the city yet it appears that gene failed to understand the impact of some of his words on others does that make him a monster beyond hope of redemption it does not same progressive discipline system that each one of you I believe would endorse to be applied to every other employee in the city of burlington should have been employed as to as to gene Richards as director derpy recommended gene should be reprimanded and he would willingly accept reprimand and perhaps given some time off to gain better perspective and he has had some time off to gain better perspective there's one other important piece of information for you to take into account to ascertain the right outcome of this year if you look back at page 13 of mayor's exhibit 11 you may find an answer to the question of whether you should be trusting of my suggestion that the human resources department in this city has failed to adequately support gene as a manager and I submit probably other managers as well because that department has just spread way too thin and here's what you'll find quote the city has to consider whether proper controls are in place to effectively manage this behavior multiple witnesses alleged allegations of Mr Richards behavior prior directly to human resources and their perception is that the issues have been ignored and not investigated the city was unable to produce documentation of any prior complaints or documentation or investigation or action taken representatives of the human resources department said they raised concerns about the treatment of airport employees to the prior human resources director directors but action was not taken please note that when the investigator addressed this with the mayor the mayor contacted the former hr director and former city attorney for follow-up both former employees denied awareness of any allegations that were not investigated or appropriately handled what's my point pretty simple if gene's impressions of the way in which he communicated with his employees do not match those of those employees a fair evaluation and a fair disciplinary system should have brought that to gene's attention long ago he's a good man he's a person of good will he wants to do the right thing like any of his employees like any employee of this city gene should have had and he should still have the opportunity to learn from his mistakes no one who really knows gene Richards would tell you that he is a bad man they would tell you that he's a passionate man committed to running the airport effectively and successfully for the benefit of this community he should have had the opportunity to see himself as others see him when the mayor failed to do that and receive the recent complaints the mayor still have stood still should have and still could reprimand him and require that he take some time off to get some perspective the question the charter the charter charges you with answering is a simple one gene is not an employee at will he is an employee for a term of one year he's entitled to continue his employment unless you conclude that he can no longer effectively serve the city that's the standard of the charter gene has had some time off gene has some more perspective he can still serve the city well he knows that this mayor will not reappoint him and so even if you agree that he should not be dismissed this will be his final year as the director of aviation for the city of Burlington gene should have the rest of his final year he should have the opportunity to make amends to those he has offended he should have the chance to use what he has learned to be a better manager and develop a better airport with a more contented and more productive staff he should have the rest of this final year to aid the city in making a transition to a new permanent airport director anything else is a waste of human talent and dearly one experience anything else would be an injustice you would not be satisfied if another employee of this city were treated this way you should not be satisfied if gene richards is treated this way the city's own policies would not permit such an injustice to be committed as to others you should not permit such an injustice to be committed as to gene richards i thank you so very much for your kind attention this evening thank you with a 1032 for a rebuyable i think my client would like to speak okay and he understands he'd be put on the road yes uh attorney city attorney richards will you please swear the witness sure if you've raised your right hand you solemnly swear our firm that the testimony you're about to give in a matter under consideration shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth under a pains and penalties of perjury this has been sworn in thank you please begin the timer when uh director richards begins to speak uh good evening uh growing in city councilors i appreciate the opportunity to speak with you this evening the circumstances are not ideal but i trust that you will be thoughtful and careful in your deliberations your decision this evening obviously affects me and my family personally but more importantly it affects the entire region served by the airport facility i'd like to start by apology apologizing to those individuals that i've offended i am truly sorry for any offense of behavior whatever happens this evening please know that i have learned from my experience and i am disappointed in my actions that have cost cast a negative spotlight on the airport i've been in kantoi's auditorium over the years for all sorts of business but i never imagined that i'd be here coming here to fight for my job and my reputation spend my experience with this group that you want to do the right thing for our city now you're interested in listening to all perspectives and independent thinkers you all believe in due process and appropriate cause and progressive discipline restore of justice and balancing the positives against the negatives this process to date has not reflected that those values for examples presenting me with the report and immediately asking me for my resignation before i even had a chance to read doesn't seem right i was told that not one city councilor would support me and i was hurting the party and this administration by refusing to resign in light of that pressure why didn't i simply resign first i didn't think the process was just i wanted a chance to speak with you this evening second i've had accomplishments at the airport and i am i am the best in the best position to lead the airport through the end of my term nine years ago the airport was in poor shape financially and operationally we were junk bond status and had less than a week of cash on hand and the facilities were in serious disrepair the morale was at an all-time low through hard work by me and countless others we stabilized the finances and made the airport credit worthy and grew passenger count substantially over the last nine years the deferred maintenance has been addressed and the facilities are in the best shape they've been in for years the tv now has a multi-year airline agreement which is a big accomplishment for an airport our size we also focused our image to represent vermont and its products and businesses today burlington international is a success story for each of the last nine years the mayor has reappointed me with support from the airport commission and yourselves most recently it's past june 2021 i earned that that trust and support and i hope that you agree that my dedicated service and accomplishments have earned me a second chance just this last tuesday evening i finally received a copy of my personnel file and opened it to know to reveal that i had suspected no complaints no problems no issues no grievances between myself and any of the employees spanning over the nine-year period in mid june i was reappointed and shortly after i was asked to resign with no opportunity of corrective action the initial report from city hr director dated june 29 2021 clearly states and her recommendations in addition to a written notice i recommend director richards be encouraged to take some time away from his duties over the last nine years i've learned about every issue involving airport operations including best practices for airline operations concessions fixed space operations construction architectural standards nfa requirements i know the ropes i've also dealt firsthand with every company doing business with the airport learning the key players who are and how best to deal with them effectively finally i led the airport through the darkest days of covet 19 pandemic and over the last 18 months even though the airline industry overall was extremely challenged btv was able to emerge from the situation with a balanced budget we added three new routes miami dalis in boston and we retain all the other routes and despite minimal staffing looking forward in the coming year the airport faces challenges and opportunities the terminal integration project has broke ground a few weeks ago the project is critical to combine tsa into one checkpoint and enable travelers to utilize one state-of-the-art checkpoint facility beta technologies is a leading economic driver for chitin and county in the state of vermont and they've been they have big expansion plans at the airport that project is the most exciting development project in chitin and county at the moment in closing i'd respectfully ask you to allow me to continue my term through june 2022 during this period i'll prepare the airport for transition to a new director of aviation i will continue to work with these amazing projects and more than anything i will apply the lessons that i have learned from this moment on thank you thank you please stop the timer there's four minutes and 15 seconds that you have for rebuttal attorney lin yeah thank you what is that one moment let us we had 16 24 i'm not finding that function but i can always add 24 seconds so i'll do this and then manually add 24 seconds so i'm sorry may i yes go ahead so let me respond to the arguments that i think i heard from the director and his attorney the first argument i heard was that the director is sorry for the harm that he caused that he can be a leader at the airport again and i would ask all of you to think very carefully about the nature of the apology that you heard leadership is about accepting responsibility confronting your mistakes learning from your mistakes and then acknowledging them and moving on and in this instance have we ever heard the director acknowledge the mistakes the mistreatment of the employees at the airport what we've heard is an attempt to confuse and distract for example look at exhibit e this is the document that attorney cassidy spent much time with this is a grievance document that was provided to attorney cassidy in this case and this document identifies some behaviors it talks about the director being combative with employees him generating fear of retaliation encouraging employees to be dishonest and he engages in bullying and humiliating behavior he engages in tirades with subordinates he talks to employees he stops talking to employees who complain her who caused scrutiny of the airport people have grown weary of his behavior that is in the document that attorney cassidy spent so much time with and what else did he do to try and confuse you well the date of the document is june 29th 2021 this investigation followed this document and in the intervening six weeks or so between the time this document was created and the time that the tinny report which you have in your materials was generated we learned the problem was not as bad as this it was much worse and it was the depth and the severity and the breadth of the mistreatment that caused us to make the recommendation to the council that mr richards ought to be terminated from his at will position well what else do we know we know there was an argument that somehow we ought to follow progressive discipline but of course that fundamentally misunderstands the concept of progressive discipline because what we know is progressive discipline is a system of discipline where the punishment it's the crime where for low level infractions low level responses make sense but even under progressive discipline where the behaviors the misconduct in which the employee engage are so bad that they are not tolerable you may move immediately to the most severe kind of discipline now there's no argument made by anyone here that the director is entitled to progressive discipline the argument is more nuanced the argument is you ought to give him progressive discipline anyway even though he is not entitled to it what i'd suggest to you is that under any standard somebody who mistreats and i i'm not going to go back over the slides from the report that i read to you earlier but there were three pages of slides of examples of mr richards engaging in what i would only characterize to you as intolerable behaviors with your employees and where that's the case even if he were entitled to progressive discipline he ought to be fired what else what else did we hear well we heard complaints about the way the mayor handled this problem this issue and and let's think for a moment about what those complaints really were the mayor met with mr richards he told him what was in the report he eventually let him see what was in the report and he asked him to resign so that we would not have to be here tonight he in fact you will see because we provided you with a copy or plain of i'm sorry mr cassidy has provided you with a copy of this document tried to generate a press release that would make it easier that would give him dignity in his departure from the city but mr richards refused and i ask you to look at that document because that document is instructive what it does is it tells you tells you the thought process that the mayor engaged in that is let's find a way for the director to leave let's do it under circumstances that are as least disruptive to the city as possible but there is nothing in that statement that we back away from one bit because what's in that statement is an affirmation of the values of the city when it comes to personnel management how we treat our employees we do not mistreat our employees there is an affirmation in that document that the mayor puts people over profits the airport is doing well financially but from the mayor's perspective people are more important than profits and so that document says nothing that we would ever back away from and the mayor stands behind it today we acknowledge that mr richards had successes at the airport we celebrate those successes and the mayor who reappointed mr richards eight times nine times over those many years did it because he appreciated those successes this is not a man who sought from the beginning somehow some personal vendetta to drive mr richards out of his office this is somebody who celebrated and supported him for many years but when confronted with the severity and the breadth and the scope and the seriousness of the conclusions contained in the tinny report he had no choice and that's why we are here tonight the final the final thing that i would say to you is that the mayor has not yet spoken and i think it's important for you to hear from him before we finish tonight and with that mayor winder please pause the timer please swear in the witness you solemnly swear affirm the testimony you're about to give for the matter under consideration shall be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth under a pain penalties perjury witness has been sworn in thank you please begin the timer when mayor windberger begins to speak sorry tracy can you restate that i just said please begin the timer when the mayor begins to speak all right thank you president tracy and the council for the opportunity to add some additional context and detail to my decision to seek the termination of aviation director gene richards and i do want to start by emphasizing one of the points that see the attorney lin just made this is the last thing that i wanted to see happen us to be here tonight gene richards is someone who i have known pretty well for 15 years now since we first served as airport commissioners together and then served together for nine years and i'm i'm proud of what we accomplished together at the airport we are here because of actions the actions of mr richards that i cannot ignore and i don't think you as the council can ignore department heads are different than all their city employees in our system they're given considerable independence and organizational authority further as you know department heads are appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council and thereafter they serve in the words of the charter as we have focused on tonight at our joint pleasure that means that we the mayor and the city council are collectively responsible for the service of our department heads and their actions are a direct reflection of our values and intentions as elected leaders their actions are the reality of the workplace culture that we support in the organization we strive to be given this special responsibility and accountability that we have for the actions of department heads i have with sadness concluded that there is no way for gene richards to continue as the aviation director the actions and repeated lapses in judgment documented in it and it attenuys memo are inconsistent with the shared values of collaboration belonging and respect that i expect our department heads to demonstrate and that are reflected in our personal policies as has been documented tonight when i confronted gene with these concerns on august 18th he asked for a second chance and i want to be clear on this i think the record here has been misrepresented i did in that first meeting voice concern that gene could not continue it would have to resign i did not demand his resignation at that at that meeting gene asked me to consider another way i had already given that a lot of thought but he asked me to think about it again and when people asked me to rethink decisions sincerely and earnestly i do that i go back and do that and i did hear in a later meeting with gene that he felt threatened by by me in that meeting and and he's entitled to feel that that's what was happening there what i was trying to articulate was to describe what i feared was going to have to happen if he did not resign and that is that we would end up here tonight and i think i was right to be concerned about that this is this is terrible that people that have worked together and have served the city together have to go through this and i was seeking another way and there was another way through that and that is what the point of that letter that was offered in the settlement discussions to gene was about i seriously considered again both before and after he made that request the possibility was there another way unfortunately it is clear from the record that he has made serious errors he is and he has failed to we heard some of it finally tonight but he has failed to properly acknowledge or correct them to give him yet another opportunity to again exert supervisory authority over employees after reading their accounts is not something that i can do in good conscience to do so i think would be a betrayal of the many employees who came forward despite fear of retribution and place their confidence in our investigation and our collective decision making and to put him back in a supervisory role would amount i feel to condoning the serious and repeated mistreatment of employees that miss tinny uncovered again i'm very sad to have reached this conclusion when i commended gene publicly for his service during the pandemic gene did great things during the pandemic he was a key part of this team that i believe saved lives that just a few months ago i did not imagine that his work in the city would take this turn so soon thereafter regrettably i do not see any viable alternative to the termination process that i've initiated i urge the council to take action tonight so that our concerned employees at the airport can have resolution so the airport team can stabilize and begin to rebuild and continue to do good the good work that a team has done at the airport and i continue to believe them in them they we will be able to continue to have success at the airport after you take the action that i think is your responsibility to make tonight and so that the city administration leadership and council can turn our attention to that to many other pressing public matters before us i think it's important that we reach conclusion tonight thank you president tracy thank you the council for this chance please let the record show that there is three minutes and nine seconds left excuse me plus the 24 seconds but i couldn't add okay thank you please let the record show that what was the remaining time for about four minutes and 15 seconds what do you seek to use that time president tracy you would like to use some rebuttal time i just want to talk with my client for a moment about how to use it please go ahead okay thank you apologize for that go ahead thank you president tracy i want to say that i thought that the mayor's remarks were very interesting and they illustrate a central point in our defense here uh different people have different perceptions of different communications the mayor acknowledged that uh perhaps gene felt threatened by him but he doesn't think he threatened gene one of them is right and one of them is wrong maybe or maybe it's someplace in between human or human interactions are slippery and people have different attitudes about different ways in which people communicate that's fundamentally what this case is all about how can you know how can gene know what the investigators conclusions are based upon without seeing the statements of the people who the investigator concludes were offended even then it might be difficult but we could try has the mayor dealt fairly with gene richards in this matter i submit to you know from the beginning of the conversation once the report arrived the conversation was about gene resigning there was no effort to examine the question of whether the statements in the report the conclusions in the report were true if the mayor wanted to behave the way he says he wanted to behave the right thing to do would be to sit down with gene and the report and the statements surrounding the report which nobody has seen apparently except the investigator and say gene are these the true facts is this an ace or two this statement is it fact does it say what the investigator thinks it says or not if it does gene then maybe you should resign if it doesn't gene maybe you shouldn't that's the fair and reasonable approach to try to find the actual facts and give a person a chance to behave in a way that would retain their dignity but no the mayor decided based on the report that there was no discussion about what would happen gene had to go and then he tried to bully gene into resigning that's what happened the mayor asked for demanded genes resignation at least three times maybe the first time he only suggested his resignation that's the way the mayor remembers it and i'm not denying that his memory is is truthful i'm just saying it might not be accurate in the same sense that some of the things that people think gene said to them might be somewhat in the eye of the beholder or the ear of the balder rather than truth so there's a reason progressive discipline is applied to your employees it's good policy it's fair and reasonable to say to people hey you need to think about what you're doing here maybe what you're doing wasn't quite right maybe you need to fix it now one of the things i heard in my my opponents and the mayor's presentations was a suggestion that genes apology wasn't full-sum enough i see i only have 40 seconds i just want to say it's very hard to apologize fully and fairly if you don't understand what you're accused of what did you say when to whom under what circumstances those are questions that have never been answered and apparently they never will be i submit that's not the right way for it to go i thank you again for your time and attention i hope gene gets to leave this room uh with his head held high and i know that he will because he knows he's trying to do the right thing thank you thank you nothing further okay so you're ceding the rest of your time we are okay all right we will now close the deliberative or the um the presentation portion of the evening and move into counselor questions each counselor will have four minutes to ask their questions including the time that is answered that is used to answer the questions i will look to counselors for their their hands for in order to get into the queue and call on you as i see you as as we had talked about so i will if there are counselors seeking to ask questions please let me know if i just may make a quick procedural point uh president tracy that i would just note that the uh witnesses would remain under oath throughout the hearing notwithstanding the transfer from the presentation to the counselors questions thank you thank you uh city attorney richardson so um i saw council carpenter's hand um there are others council high tower barlow and counselors are able to ask are able to request to be recognized after others have asked questions as well you have your four minutes so if you didn't raise your hand right now that doesn't mean you can't ask questions at a later portion and again we're um seeking uh looking for counselors to ask questions seeking information um our clarification on points that they need to inform their decision making uh around the question that's that's that's before us this evening so i will go to council carpenter first to be followed by high tower and barlow again if you are interested in asking questions let me know and i'll get you in the queue thank you thank you um attorney lin just two points of clarification the letter that attorney casady read from hr director um derpy as i understand it was written at the very beginning of the process before all of the information was found so it was written in a context of one single allegation not in the context of what occurred in the next six weeks that's correct so let me let me give the the chronology yeah the the date of the document that you're referring to was june 29th mr richards was put on paid administrative leave after that time and the investigation occurred subsequent to that completing sometime in late august so what we learned from june 29th to august late august was significantly broader in terms of the nature and the scope of the problem the other question may ask a procedural question please have an opportunity to respond to questions that are asked of our opponents or not no only people counselors are able to direct questions to who they're seeking the question from but they are not um but there's not a time for you unless a counselor directs a question to somebody we're not um i'm not going to give additional time for that please uh continue the timer and continue continue where you left off thank you so can i take off the mask yes sorry thank you um also um attorney lin as i understand the section 129 process we are to opine on whether or not mr richards can effectively run the airport but and i'm just reiterating this is not a just cause hearing there's no obligation on our part to validate the allegations as such um in and i'm trying to get that as an affirmation that um we're not here to opine on the allegations but to opine on the relationship and the end the end result of what has maybe a failed relationship or i think that's a that's an incredibly smart observation so we're spending a lot of time arguing about you know what we think the facts are what the investigation says whether the documents say what we think they say what people remember but in the end you're absolutely right counselor the decision is um and i'm looking at section 129 is is whether um whether the the uh the employee will continue is going to continue to effectively serve the city and if your judgment based on what you heard here or based on anything else because this is a political decision is is that mr richards cannot continue to effectively serve the city regardless of what you believe may have happened you may vote to terminate his employment thank you all set counselor thank you okay counselor hi tower great um i'm also going to go off the basis of the question of um if mr richards is able to effectively serve the city and my question partially because effectiveness is relative and we are right now are setting it to a standard of um other department heads and given that i guess my question is is if mr richards had such as you presented obvious um and ongoing leadership issues um why he was reappointed eight times why no issues went to the level of a supervisor or in some cases even the council and if it did why are we here today in this manner so today we're getting a recommendation for termination after several years of um recommendations for reappointment and i'd like to and ask why this is the way that we're addressing these leadership issues so counselor hi tower is that to me it is to either whoever which one of you to choose is to answer well so let me let me try and and if i get it wrong the mayor will of course tell me um so so look the issue is this um what do you have learned tonight and the evidence shows is that this investigation um unearthed a pattern of behavior over time that came to the attention of the mayor the mayor has told you earlier that he did not realize and did not understand that despite all of the many important accomplishments that the director had at the airport there was this really important area where things had gone incredibly badly where the standard of performance or the performance demonstrated was so far below our expectations that there was no way that he could continue uh at as a leader at the airport because remember in the end we are talking about an ability to act as an effective leader and what i would suggest to you is that any reading of this report demonstrates that whatever other strengths may exist for the director management and supervision and support and collaboration and encouragement of our employees is not one of them and what the mayor decided was based on those conclusions he had no choice that he valued these employees too much that the damage done was too great and as a result there was only one way to proceed and that was with new leadership at the airport i hope that answers your question i'll just add to what attorney lin is just said um the serious mistreatment of employees that is described in this report was brought to me in the course of this investigation i immediately took the action that has led to us being here tonight and having this termination hearing um if i had had that information sooner i would have acted on it sooner you all set i'm all set thank you okay i have councillor barlow thank you president tracy um i just want to clarify and it may have been um mentioned during the presentations and i guess this i'll direct this question to both sides but during the nine years that um director richards ran the airport and prior to the issuance of this report um how many complaints were filed against mr richards with regard to his behavior and treatment of employees if any you wish to go first mr lin whatever the councillor short go ahead so the the short answer is um so let me let me answer your question a little bit differently the the issue for us is how many complaints was the mayor aware of right because the mayor is the person ultimately who has to trigger this process and the and what i think what the mayor said is he was not aware of anything approaching the severity of the issues that were unearthed in this investigation and i think if you look at that document from june 29th what you'll see is nobody was aware how bad it was there were some issues that were identified that i think we can all agree are serious and significant but then when the investigation commenced we began to learn that the problems far exceeded anything in that document so i i think that's the only way that i can answer the question for you is that we we became increasingly aware that there was a serious issue councilor borough i think the question can't be simply answered but the beginning of the simple answer is none that gene richards was aware of and if you look at the investigators report there is some language there that causes one to ask what's going on some suggestion that there were complaints that reached human resources but we're never investigated and we're never brought to gene's attention we're never brought to anybody's attention and we don't know what the facts are about that but it does seem very unusual okay thank you thank you okay i don't have any other counselors in the queue counselor shannon thank you president tracy um with regard to the um derpy letter of june 29th can um the mayor or mr lin explain what happened at that point and why the next investigation was launched there was a recommended action in this report but what was happening at that time and why did it not proceed in the way recommended by this report to whom are you addressing your question to the to the mayor mr lin yep council i'm hoping councillor shannon could repeat the end of her question because i i got certainly distracted yeah sorry do i get extra time for that please proceed um why what was happening at the time of june 29th when caron derpy issued this report um that then launched the next investigation which was not consistent with the recommendations of this report i'll answer that from from from my perspective which the to a large degree and i think this was mischaracterized um um by attorney casady um from my perspective what launched this investigation i've been so i wrote to you when i um i initiated this from my perspective what started this was this uh issue with the misuse of um gasoline um by director richards this was belittled as being of non-consequence but from the very beginning this has been um a concerning issue and one that i think was a terrible last in judgment that's what the report says and uh one that if not technically a violation of uh policy um because the policy doesn't really contemplate a director abusing property it contemplates uh employees that directors are responsible for misusing property it's it's not a violation only in that technical sense from my reading the report it was clearly a violation of practice the suggestion that would be difficult for uh a department had to get reimbursement for um uh for for mileage or other expenses um you know because because of the mayor's schedule is kind of an outrage is a real misreading of of the the way those systems function that's reimbursement is possible so the point is this was thrust into a major investigation from my perspective when there was the concerns reported by an fAA employee talk about appearance of of uh impropriety the fAA an fAA employee came forward and raised concerns and that's what triggered this adjacent to that adjacent to that there were emerging concerns um uh there was this grievance that was filed and then once the investigation began and once he was from my perspective put on leave because of the gasoline concern that is um when uh things went developed from there so i hope that answers your question so that was separate from the issues raised in this derpy they quickly were conflated but the from my perspective i authorized gene being put on leave by director derpy and ceo shahd um uh after hearing their deep concerns about the gasoline point of personal privilege mr president the mayor accused me of misconstruing the situation and i think i don't think there's i should be entitled i don't think there's any question there's no there's no basis under your process for him to promote the mayor i think i should be entitled to respond no we we established that counselors are asking the questions um and they're directing the questions the counselors are fit to use their time as they see fit the counselor shannon did not request that did not ask this question of you attorney cassidy so um she directed her question to to uh the the mayor um so that's where that that's the process so i'm gonna uphold that um attorney our counselor shannon your time is up counselor jang i see that you're looking to be recognized yep thank you um i have two questions and i think for both parties and i think the first one is uh to reflect on um uh attorneys of the mayor about response i'm having difficulty hearing you counseling about the logistics basically department heads and even the mayor they are responsible for the overall direction the supervision the evaluation of the employees both of them right and it struck me that gene you have never it was a struggle for you to have access to the mayor based on what i heard it also you have never been evaluated have never heard of that doing your and was just wondering when mr. mayor you heard about this allegation have you sat down with him for someone you worked with served with appointed many many time to at least talk about performance improvement plane because of his behaviors that you never know about and someone that you never evaluated before have you thought of that so first of all um from my perspective we collectively evaluate and make a decision on department heads every year i with the exception of the two positions that are by charter more than one year um appointments my practice is to make one year appointments so that there is the opportunity for frequent um uh reevaluations of whether our appointment is a good one and that process is one that we have some formality around we request uh input from the each of the applicable commissions we take stock of what's happened in the last year and we decide whether or not my evaluation is whether or not to put forward for reappointment department heads and i've been very clear and that i did that and um in the case of mr. richards um these serious concerns had not been raised with me prior to this investigation um as i've described let me if there's some ambiguity about this i think i've tried to describe this when the report was complete to a sufficient degree that uh it was something i could discuss with mr. richards um and discuss these allegations i repeated the process that had happened during the investigation where the investigator um as she writes uh discuss these allegations i went through them point by point as you have essentially heard them tonight and um stated my very concern that i real concern that i did not see how gene could continue he asked explicitly i don't think there was any confusion over there there's been some suggestion there was confusion there was no confusion he explicitly asked me to reconsider that i explicitly said okay i will do that this meeting is not the last time we will meet this was on a wednesday and i said we are going to meet again very soon and what i want to prepare you i want what you need to do what i'm asking you to do between now and when we meet again is consider that i may well be coming back to you and saying that your choice is either to resign or to go through this termination process so explicitly what was asked was whether some kind of performance improvement plan was a viable option and um that is something i had already considered i considered again and i just to boil down the the decision i face is one that you all are going to face in a few moments looking at the words that are in this report looking at the the fact that this has been corroborated by all witnesses is this something that warrants a performance improvement plan or it is something is more needed and i concluded the water thank you mr. dang i do believe councillor dang did address this question to us yes thank you um i'd like to answer your question councillor uh in part by pointing you to an exhibit which i think is really quite revealing about the process and the lack of process that has surrounded the mayor's reappointment and evaluation process as he now tries to characterize it and that is exhibit g from the documents we shared with you that's an article that was published in the other paper and the center of the article really are the remarks of ellen really who is the south burlington representative on the city on the airport commission she says in part i urge you to read the whole article not all flattering to gene but it doesn't need to be the commission is annually asked to sign a letter endorsing the director to continue really said but when she was first asked to do this she was taken aback and she never saw any kind of evaluation she raised concerns to the commission regarding the evaluation process asking how it was conducted but very little was ever done well that's the reality there's been no no real evaluation process other than asking the airport commissioners to sign a letter endorsing the reappointment of the airport director i also want to say that as far as the mayor's characterization of his communications with commissioner richards is concerned we don't deny that at the initial conversation the mayor said that he would reconsider what we asked in there is what would that reconsideration consist of all that's ever happened that we know of is that the report of the investigator has been relied upon without any effort that we are aware of to go beneath the facts the only time we go beneath the facts and it's the reason we drew this exhibit to your attention is the work that helen durphy did i'm sorry it's not helen karen durphy did to investigate the grievance and there there are facts about what happened that can be examined but in the investigator's report there are conclusions about what the investigation drew from what she was set what she was told the accuracy of which is entirely dependent upon the accuracy of her assessment i do want to make one apology to the mayor he's absolutely right and i misstated it and i do try to be honest and direct when he says this was kicked off with an allegation about gasoline that's correct i misstated mr. mayor and i apologize for that thank you i don't have any other counselors in the queue any other counselors who have not used their time yet okay seeing none we will move into the next section of the process which will be to go into executive session again for deliberations based on what we've heard this evening so again we will need to have a motion and then a motion to establish a finding of a need to go into executive session and then based on that finding we'll then go into executive session itself councillor shannon if you could please make that motion i move that the council go into executive session to to discuss deliberations made within the context of a quasi judicial hearing per one vsa 312 e deliberative exemption attorney richardson does that cover the yes i mean i would certainly the council can move under all three of the grounds that it previously moved into executive session and only one of them the advice from legal counsel would require a preliminary finding that prejudicial that would be prejudicial to one or more parties to conduct such conversation and open meeting but certainly councillor shannon's motion is more than sufficient okay thank you we have a motion from councillor shannon a second from councillor paul is there any discussion of the motion on the finding to go into executive session councillors okay here none we will go to a vote on the finding all those in favour please say aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously now based on that finding based on the finding i move to go into executive session we have a motion to go into executive session is there a second seconded by councillor paul any further discussion of the motion to go into executive session councillors okay here none we'll go to a vote all those in favour please say aye aye any opposed that carries unanimously and we'll just have recording stopped these next steps in the in the process for everybody the city council will have a motion made second and then take a vote on that motion as we would at that point the city council i will read a statement on behalf of the city council um so one thing that i will request of everybody after the statement during the statement please maintain decorum in the chamber please do not have any reactions to what the vote is one way or the other we really would appreciate that in terms of just maintaining the the respect of the body and the proceeding that's taken place this evening so please everybody who's here please respect the decorum of the body if you want to express yourselves please leave the building and do so that way but we really in this room please maintain decorum we've really undertaken a serious process here and we need people to to respect that so please do so going as we take this vote thank you so as i said before we'll now take a motion based in order to based on the the determination so councillor stromberg may please have a motion i move that the council remove gene richards from his position as director of aviation under the terms of section 129 of the burlington city charter we have a motion from councillor stromberg is there a second is there a second seconded by councillor carpenter okay is there any further discussion is there any discussion okay seeing none will the city clerk please call the roll will the CAO please call the roll councillor hightower yes president tracy yes councillor McGee yes councillor carpenter yes councillor paul yes councillor jang no councillor stromberg yes councillor freeman yes councillor hanson yes councillor barlow yes councillor shannon yes that's 10 eyes one day the motion carries on behalf of the city council i've been asked to deliver the following statement we recognize and acknowledge the contributions that gene richards has made as director of aviation for the city of burlington we further recognize that the current situation is untenable to retain mr richards as director of aviation the evidence and testimony tonight shows that the relationship between mr richards and mayor wine burger is broken and the relationship between mr richards and his staff is also broken we further recognize that processes in the city are broken and have let everyone down section 129 provides a method for the mayor and for the city council to remove a city officer or department head when it is determined that the individual can no longer effectively serve the city in their current position we have reached that point tonight and our vote tonight reflects this determination we did take this action with the gravity and seriousness that the situation requires we stand behind our city employees and we believe that our city should be a safe and positive workplace while our findings tonight do not cast blame or aspersions on one or more individuals we recognize that the situation brought before us requires much work beyond that that beyond this decision and we encourage each of the parties before us tonight to begin that process as both legislators and public officials we commit ourselves and our resources to this task as well thank you very much and without objection we are hereby adjourned