Man
overboard : Sherrill Whittemore isn't the
only person in hot water at BOEC.
Before former City Commissioner Gretchen Kafoury handed
over her office keys to Dan Saltzman last year, her staff
briefed the new commissioner and his top aide, Maria Rojo
de Steffey, about the city agencies they would inherit.
As Rojo de Steffey recalls, she and her boss were told
the Bureau of Emergency Communications would require only
minimal oversight--at most, "an hour a month."
Instead, BOEC has proved to be a black hole, sapping
Saltzman's time and energy for the past five months as
he's fought to get a handle on the dysfunctional office.
"It's a hornet's nest of emotions and tensions," he says.
In January, after reviewing an investigation of the bureau,
Saltzman told Sherrill Whittemore, the BOEC director,
that he planned to fire her. "A certain level of complacency
had set in," as the commissioner puts it, and he wanted
to deal with it aggressively.
Last week, however, Saltzman could only watch in quiet
frustration as Whittemore returned to her job, despite
the investigation's revelations of serious managerial
lapses at the city's 911 center.
It wasn't the ending Saltzman expected.
When the former Multnomah County commissioner moved over
to the city in January 1999, he thought that voters had
elected him to be a manager within the city's theoretically
stronger form of government. Over at the county, the county
chair makes the hiring and firing decisions, while commissioners
are advocates and paper shufflers who vote, but have little
authority over bureaucrats. As Saltzman quickly learned,
it's not much different at the city.
Saltzman's BOEC headache began last October, when an
employee went to City Auditor Gary Blackmer about allegations
of lax supervision at the 911 center. Saltzman figured
it was time to earn his managerial spurs. He ordered Nov.
5 that Blackmer's office investigate the whistleblower's
allegations.
Unlike a traditional bureau audit, which looks at how
an agency functions, Blackmer's probe focused heavily
on Whittemore's personal conduct, including reports of
excessive profanity.
Thirteen of the 18 allegations against Whittemore and
BOEC were substantiated in whole or in part, according
to a copy of the report obtained by WW this week.
Among the report's findings:
* Whittemore was frequently absent from the office during
normal work hours. From Sept. 16 through Oct. 13, Whittemore
was out of the office for 12 and a half of 20 workdays;
seven and a half of those days she was working at home.
* On 24 occasions Whittemore changed her time sheet from
sick or vacation status to "working at home" or "flex"
schedule.
* BOEC, under Whittemore's watch, paid a consultant more
than $115,000 for computer software development in violation
of city purchasing rules for selecting, contracting and
paying for the work.
Saltzman briefed Whittemore on the findings in early
January and gave her and her attorneys the opportunity
to respond. On Jan. 24, he gave Whittemore her walking
papers.
It was a bold move for a first-term commissioner, and
difficult to pull off. Although Whittemore isn't represented
by a union, she, like almost every other city manager,
enjoys civil service protection, which amounts to tenured
employment. Yet Saltzman was confident that, given the
investigation, he had nailed Whittemore for her spotty
attendance and other managerial snafus.
Six weeks later, the Whittemore affair blew up in his
face.
On Feb. 17, Whittemore's attorneys threatened to file
a lawsuit against the city and the commissioner under
the Americans with Disabilities Act. As Saltzman learned,
Whittemore is diabetic. When it comes to employment law,
no one likes to tangle with the ADA.
As Whittemore's lawyers explained, the administrator
needed to work from home to reduce stress that aggravated
her ailment. What's more, they said, she had been authorized
to do so by Saltzman's predecessor.
Last week, in an interview with WW, Kafoury confirmed
that she had made such a verbal agreement. "I admit to
a huge mistake of not putting this in writing," says Kafoury.
Saltzman, who had not known about Kafoury's action, was
handcuffed. Under Portland's civil service rules, commissioners
are bound by any agreements previous commissioners make
with their employees. And he's clearly not happy: "I feel
screwed," he told WW late Monday afternoon.
What remains a mystery is why Whittemore never told her
new boss about her disability and her informal accommodation,
despite it requiring her to often work from home. Whittemore
says she doesn't "whine about my health."
For his part, Saltzman might wish that she had. "It's
baffling to me why she didn't," he says. "I've been in
charge for a year--you think that would've come up."
As it is, Saltzman is now saddled with overseeing a bureau
in turmoil. Beyond the strum und drang around BOEC,
the quality of the agency's core service has never been
in doubt--and much of the credit must go to Whittemore,
who was brought in after Gary Schrader was fired in 1994.
But the place is still under a cloud. Many BOEC employees
have told WW that they loathe working under Whittemore.
On March 7, a note was sent to the 911 center's dispatch
floor announcing that Whittemore would soon be back in
the Southeast Portland building. "Returning as director?
Or to pick up the rest of her personal belongings?" went
the response sent back to BOEC administrative offices.
What's more, Saltzman must now supervise a woman who
knows he'd like to fire her. In his March 6 letter of
reprimand and reinstatement, Saltzman put Whittemore on
a short leash, and then added a choke collar. He specified
12 directives for her to follow, including one prohibiting
her from swearing at employees or retaliating against
any BOEC employee who testified against her during the
investigation.
The experience has pushed Saltzman to question the entire
way Portland city government is structured. Unlike every
other major U.S. city, Portland does not have a city manager
or strong mayor to run the bureaus. Instead, it requires
the elected commissioners, along with the mayor, to manage
bureaus, while hamstringing them with severe limits on
personnel matters. "It limits my ability to make common-sense
changes," Saltzman says. "So much of what we do as commissioners
is how we manage an agency. Yet we don't have as much
control as people think. I'd love to see this addressed,
but it's not a sexy issue."
MAN OVERBOARD
Sherrill Whittemore isn't the only person in hot water
at BOEC.
WW has learned that Gary Bevans, the agency's
principal management analyst, will face a hearing before
the Oregon Standards and Practices Commission on April
14, according to Alan Priest, a commission investigator.
The commission enforces ethics laws, which prohibit public
officials from turning their positions to private gain
and require them to reveal conflicts of interest. As first
reported by WW, Bevans was caught red-handed running
a small side business on city time and using city resources
("Fax Checking," WW, Dec. 1, 1999). The article
spurred the commission's examination of Bevans.
After hearing testimony, the seven-member commission
can ask for a complete investigation. Although the commission
cannot fire Bevans, it can fine him up to $1,000 for each
violation or force him to pay twice the amount of any
gain.
Bevans, who did not return WW's calls, makes $48,770
a year and made an estimated $3,200 a year working weekends
as an agent for a cruise line.
The city auditor's report dinged Bevans hard. As a result,
Bevans kept his job at BOEC under what City Commissioner
Dan Saltzman terms as conditions tougher than those of
Sherrill Whittemore.
-PD
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Willamette Week | originally
published March 15,
2000
