To the Editor:
I would like to take this opportunity to go through the charges against me of insubordination. This whole thing should have never happened to begin with. This is my story:
The mayor came to me in April 2009 and asked what I was doing. I told him “Everything - lots of miscellaneous stuff.” I had just come back to work from vacation. The mayor said, “Your assistant lied about the work he did yesterday.” I walked out of the city building, the mayor following, and he said, “You have not worked in 10 years, your department hasn’t worked in 10 years and the former street superintendent never did anything when he was here.” (I would prefer not to comment on what the mayor said about him). My reply was, “He hasn’t been here for 10 yrs - why involve him?” At this point I went to the street dept. garage and told the men all we had done for years didn’t have any value - that we needed to “pick up the pace” as the mayor was very unsatisfied with our work.
Later on in the week, one of the men from the dept. was talking to the former superintendent and told him what happened. The former supt. went to the mayor to ask him about it; the mayor denied saying anything. After this, a reprimand shows up about the incident between the mayor and I. Upon meeting with the administrator, I was asked to sign the reprimand. It indicated that I was at fault for misrepresenting the conversation between the mayor and I. During this meeting, I asked to be excused from the room for a moment; I made a copy of this reprimand, because of having documents being shredded in the past. I came back into the room and sat down with the administrator - he was unaware that I had made the copy. At this point I said, “I want my lawyer to take a look at this.” The administrator said, “ I did my part - we talked about this, and I will put it in my desk for now.” At the end of the following week, I saw the administrator. He told me to “take it easy today, the mayor is out of town.” I asked him what he had done with the reprimand from last week? His reply was, “I took care of it.” A few months later, during the paving project, the mayor came up to me again, starts an argument with me, called me an a****** in front of 15 or so witnesses. The village employee that I had called to be a witness of this conversation was approached by the mayor a couple of hours later and was told to “not get involved.”
At this point, the reprimand shows up again. I met with the administrator and my lawyer; we sat down to sign the reprimand. The reprimand he handed to my lawyer was stamped “COPY” from April 10, 2009; however, since the administrator did not know that I had made a copy of the original letter, the words of the “copy” reprimand did not match the wording of the original. In my opinion, the administrator DID “take care of it” in April as he said he was going to. I believe the mayor forced his hand to re-do it. My lawyer advised me to attach a letter to the reprimand stating what happened between the mayor and I. I did so - AND SIGNED IT - according to my lawyer’s direction. Because I signed on the wrong page (according to the administrator) and not signing it in a timely fashion, I was insubordinate. I can’t “duck” the administrator for five months, if signing was the issue, he could have spoken to me every day at work throughout this time.
A few weeks later I get blind-sided by a copy of this same reprimand via certified mail, saying that I am now suspended without pay, until a hearing date is set to terminate me. All of a sudden, there are new charges added to this reprimand.
The first charge - not getting my work completed in 2008 and 2009. In 2008, the administrator shut my purchase orders off for several months, except for gasoline for the vehicles. (I knew my budget was okay, because I get a monthly printout.)
This is what my lawyer calls “papering your file”, building many paper documents against you to terminate you.
During this time, we ran out of hand soap, toilet paper; we had a street department truck down for two months because it needed a $10 brake line that could not be purchased. There was a lot of time wasted because of lack of purchase order (PO) approvals.
In 2009, there was a task list given to me at the end of March to be completed by May 25, 2009. There were 304 working hours to get these tasks done; I figured out that it was approx 1,200 hours worth of work. The reason for the insubordination charge in 2009 was because 1 of the 12 items on the list was not completed - vacuuming out the catch basins. There are 556 catch basins in the streets and close to 200 in the lawn strips of the village. It takes two men 30 minutes for each basin. This task list was given by someone who is not qualified to know how long each job takes. It’s amusing to me to realize that as of today, the catch basins have not been cleaned (since Sept 15, when I received my letter). At my hearing, it was insubordination and a “must do” task. I am sure the administrator will get around to sending a memo to the department to take care of this eventually.
Charge number 2: Taking care of an undedicated street. I did so, because the street and alley committee directed me in the year of 2002 to maintain Lakeshore Drive until such a time that they would look to dedicate it. I would have been insubordinate for NOT following their orders.
Mr. Guess came in to council this summer (2009) and asked for the street to be dedicated. The administrator found out that I had maintained the street all these years; now to “add paper to my file” it became a new charge on Sept. 15.
Charge number 3: Handicapped parking stencil: The handicap stencil was painted backwards when I came here to work in 1983. I have been through eight mayors and three administrators and no one ever noticed it. It wasn’t until a police officer and myself discovered it. I took an employee and we fixed all of them in town, it took approx. four hours.
During my hearing with the arbitrator on this charge, he asked why I did not follow all state codes, referring to the village. I indicated to him that I could not follow all codes, example, if I painted all the curbs correctly throughout the village, there would virtually be NO PARKING. I explained to him there are some things you cannot do in a small town according to state code. In the document to council he said, “by Grimes’ own admission, he did not follow the state code” That would be true in this instance.....
The arbitrator, I felt, was rude to my witnesses, to my attorney and myself. He recorded the hearing and still had some of the examples twisted around in his printed version. Names were incorrectly placed, and made comments that, IN MY OPINION, I felt were uncalled for.
We used to have six men on the street dept, one part time and five full time. My budget has been the same for the past ten years; we lost our part time man, and at the end of 2007 lost one of our full time men (both were NOT replaced). We now have 4 full time men, but we have added 3 allotments in the last few years. Loss of manpower, scheduling of work with time limits, taking my purchase orders away and expect me not to fail - I feel like I was told to run a marathon, but they took my shoes away!
My file has been papered since 2007. First accusation was entering into a contract at Radio Shack with my son, for cell phones. I tried to explain over and over again that they were trac phones, and there was no contract. I had to spend a few hundred dollars to hire a lawyer to defend myself of this accusation.
In 2008, I paid my cousin to power wash the deck of our church. I was home sick with the flu while he was out doing this job; the mayor and administrator accused me of stealing sick leave. Apparently they had been riding/driving past the church and claim they saw me power washing the deck. I spent several hundred dollars again defending myself - and again found not guilty.
With all these paper charges this time, so far I have spent almost $9,000 in lawyer fees. I wonder when enough is enough?
The village would not have known about this mess, but after I was put on unpaid leave, the mayor called me out in a council meeting, asking me to give a supervisor’s report for the street department. I was shocked to say the least. Instead of ducking my head and running, I made the statement, “I can’t believe you asked me this, when you have me on unpaid leave and are trying to fire me.”
My name has been in all the local newspapers; this has been a real circus.
This has been a personal attack on my character, but the residents have seen what is happening. I am thankful for that. I’ve spent my whole life in the Village of Carrollton. I love this place and have always looked out for the best interest of the village. I have dedicated myself to this job 100%; I give of myself, my tools, my time, to make things better on my job. This summer I brought in all of my wood that was left over from a home renovation to build curbs and catch basins for the paving project, in order to save money on the budget. I’ve brought in my carpenter tools to build pole buildings, shelving and just to do different projects for the department. I’ve brought my chain saws in to cut trees that were down from storms; used my personal vehicle to plow in snow emergencies, used my garage and my electric, fuel and tools to paint trucks for the town, without compensation except for my wages... I could go on and on...does this sound like someone who is wanting to take advantage of their job?
TO THE COUNCIL MEMBERS: I am very disappointed in council, when they had a chance to hear my side and refused. Every story has two sides. After 27 years, I thought that this is the least they could do.
To the powers that be: This has been a game for you, but not for me. I have lost my career. I’m sure it’s too late to turn back time. Pride will now be in the way of the council to overturn this decision.
TO THE RESIDENTS OF CARROLLTON: It has been my privilege to work for you these past 27 years. I feel very fortunate to have found a job that I love to do. If I had a choice of any career that I could have had, I would have still chosen to work for the Village of Carrollton Street Dept. Thanks to the many residents for your kind words.
Bill Grimes
Former Street Superintendent
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