OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!!!!!

This publication is dedicated to & maintained by those of us who really care about this city. We are many --- (and growing stronger with more people joining our ranks everyday). We are the nameless , faceless city, county, state, federal, and corporate taxpaying citizens & workers who are sick of the "good ole boy system" here in Houston, Texas --We were born on 7-30-1999. We are --- married & single-male & female, maintenance worker to Deputy Directors. We are the faceless civil servants who year after year do our job. We are the one's who see the hard earned tax $$s of the citizens in this area used & abused and given away to enrich a few greedy people with each new administration. Our hobbies include: Watching our backs---as we try to bring you the truth of what is happening in Houston, and getting the REAL information out to the public

"you have come to see us dance for you,
and dance for you we shall,
but the dance that we will share with you,
is a part that we will choose.
our dance will be filled with our inner passion,
fulfilling our expectations alone.
and if this dance isn't pleasing to you,
then you must find a dance of your own

With the full co-operation of Mayor Bill White's administration, the Valiant Ms. Wiseman will take up the matter of

PLEASE ATTEND THIS MOMENTOUS OCCASION AS DISCUSSIONS BEGIN CONCERNING AN ORDINANCE ESTABLISHING THE RIGHTS AND PROTECTION OF ALL CITY WORKERS TO SPEAK UP WITHOUT FEAR OF RETALIATION.

AN ORDINANCE PROVIDING

PROTECTION FOR REPORTING VIOLATIONS OF CITY OF HOUSTON LAW

Definitions

(1) "Law" means:

(A) an ordinance of a local governmental entity

(B) a rule adopted under a City of Houston ordinance.

(2) "Local governmental entity " means THE MUNICIPALITY OF THE CITY OF HOUSTON"
    (A) special-purpose district, a board, commission, department, office, or other agency in the executive branch

(3) "Personnel action" means an action that affects a public employee's compensation, promotion, demotion, transfer, work assignment, or performance evaluation.

(4) "Public employee" means an employee or appointed officer other than an independent contractor who is paid to perform services for thee City of Houston or local governmental entity.

1. Policy: The City of Houston will adhere to all provisions of Section 554.001, Government Code, "Whistle Blower Act." This act protects public employees who in good faith report a violation of the law.
2. Retaliation Prohibited: A local governmental entity may not suspend or
terminate the employment of, or take other adverse personnel action against, a public employee who reports a violation of law by the employing governmental entity or another public employee if the employee report is made in good faith.
"Law" means a state or federal statute, an ordinance passed by a local governmental entity, or a rule adopted under a statute or an ordinance.
3. Remedy; Burden of Proof;Venue:
3.01) A public employee who alleges a violation of this act may sue for injunctive relief, damages, or both. An employee who seeks relief under this Act must sue no later than the 90th day after the day the alleged violation occurred or was discovered by the employee through the use of reasonable diligence.
3.02) A public employee who sues under this section has the burden of proof, but it is a rebuttable presumption that the employee was suspended, terminated, or suffered other adverse personnel action for reporting a violation of law if the action against the employee suspended or terminated was not later than the 90th day after making a report in good faith.
3.03) A public employee who sues under this section may bring suit in the district court of the county in which he resides or in the district court of Harris County.
4. Damages, Reinstatement:
4.01) A public employee who sues under this act may recover:
    (A) actual damages;
    (B) injunctive relief;
    (C) costs of court; and
    (D) reasonable attorney's fees.
4.02) In addition to damages recovered under this section of the policy, a public employee whose employment is suspended or terminated in violation of this act is entitled to:
    (A) reinstatement in his former position or an equivalent position;
    (B) compensation for wages lost during the period of suspension or
termination; and
    (C) reinstatement of any fringe benefits or seniority rights lost because of the suspension or termination.
5. Civil Penalty:
5.01) A supervisor who suspends or terminates the employment of a public employee for reporting a violation of law under this Act is subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $250,000. The District Attorney or the appropriate prosecuting attorney may sue to collect the penalty.
5.02) Funds collected under this section shall be deposited in the City treasury in the general revenue fund.
6. Notice: Each Department of The City of Houston shall notify its employees of their rights under this act by posting an appropriately worded sign in a prominent place in the workplace.
The Governance committee shall design the sign and draft content of the signs.
Building Services Division of the City of Houston shall print and distribute the signs.
REFERENCE:
Section 554.001, Government Code

PLEASE, WE HAVE WAITED A VERY LONG TIME FOR THIS ORDINANCE, SHOW UP, SIGN A RESOLUTION TO SUPPORT IT'S PASSAGE, SIGN UP TO SPEAK IN IT'S SUPPORT OR JUST SHOW UP AND BE PRESENT IN SUPPORT OF THIS EXTENSION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT FREEDOM OF SPEECH EFFORT ON BEHAVE OF ALL CITY EMPLOYEES

CLICK HERE FOR COPY OF RESOLUTION SUPPORTING THIS ORDINANCE, SIGN AND RETURN BY MAIL TO

City workers rarely fired for doing a bad job
By DAN FELDSTEIN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

......................the terminations from a city job were rare events.

(All letters and e-mail correspondence become the property of HOUSNITCH and housnitch.com. Unless otherwise expressly requested, we are entitled to publish all such correspondence. We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity, and for content that might get us sued, or to withhold their publication. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of our editors or sponsors.)

The Directorship of Velma Laws - not six more years!

Six Years ago Affirmative Action got a new Director, John de Leon. With this new appointment, a new position was created for an Asst. Director. One would think that this was because of the need for someone to run the office, while Mr. de Leon was working with community groups, Council and the Mayor.

Now that de Leon has left, Mrs. Laws is preparing to get the job as Director from the new mayor. She has already moved into the corner office and put her name as Director on the Letterhead!

At Yesterday's staff meeting she announced a restructuring of our office after last week's embarrassing City Council meeting. At that meeting, it came to light that Affirmative Action has not been effectively monitoring the City's supply & service contracts, the issue was that AA had one employee monitoring six hundred contracts.

Then she met before the Affirmative Action Committee meeting that is led by council members and announced to them that she had taken care of the problem by shifting personnel resources and that the problem was partially to blame because of inadequate software.

How will she explain the lack of monitoring of the construction contracts at the airport that she talked about yesterday. Why are 11 major contracts that were issued in 1999 by Aviation having several million dollars paid back to employees who worked on these construction sites? Is the City jeopardizing federal funds for future use by not paying employees correctly under the Davis Bacon Act? She suggested that Aviation prepared these contracts incorrectly, but if they did, why did it take A.A. 2 - 3 years to catch the error. And then in the meantime, all the contracts that have been awarded over the past year and a half have been backlogged. Many of these projects are closing, employees have left town.

And then on top of that she says that the Drug Policy for Contractors has been dormant. What exactly does dormant mean. We have an employee that was hired to do that job six years ago, what has he been doing, taking it easy?

It looks like Mayor White has his job cut out for him.

Actually, Ollie Schiller is up to her usual ineptness. She has a contract sitting on her desk for "The Family Cafe"...it's their second location. They entered into a contract with the City to rent the property downtown by Police Headquarters.

Last June, the City had to amend their contract, because they were having trouble paying the rent. So far, they have only paid 1/2 (half) a months rent every month since then, Also $0000 for January and February of this year have yet to be paid. That's some $45,000+ they owe us, but Ollie just can't bring herself to collect on this contract.

With the City in such dire straights, we need every penny owed us. Ollie is one of those people whose time on the gravy train is up.

Larry Baker in BS needs to go also. NOBODY even knows what he does, and he makes one of those executive paychecks! (that would pay for 2-3 REAL workers)

Library Issues
Yes, there has been a covert effort on the part of the library administration to diminish and/or stunt the growth of two of Houston’s major historical research centers:
(1) the Houston Metropolitan Research Center,
(2) the Texas & Local History Collection (a/k/a the
Texas Room)

a) In April 2000, Carol Johnson, the manager of the Texas Room was reassigned to other duties in the library. So for two (2) years, the Texas Room did not have a manager. The assistant manager, Will Howard, had been the “acting manager” and was not promoted to the manager’s position because GUBBIN decided that he was “not qualified for the job” even though he has worked in the Texas Room for 15-years and served as the “acting manger” for 2-yrs.

b) In December 2000, Louis Marchiafava, the Archivist for the City of Houston and the manager of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC) retired and has not been replaced.

Therefore, these joint research facilities have been without any leadership for 2-yrs (and still are in our opinion). The claim is that the City’s “hiring freeze” and the reorganization of the library staff prevented the replacement. However they brought over Rolando Romo and while publicly denying that the Idesen building was being dismantled, privately Lee Brown told Gubbin to dismantle it, and funds acquired for the rehabilitation of the building were transferred to the "Gregory School".

Last week we heard that GUBBIN was "shuffling" personnel around. Giving them new titles.... She will get to keep them with the lower grade titles, but they will still make executive administrative pay.

When Lee Brown took office, we had 1 Director of library and she had 1 assistant. Our Director now has 10 (TEN) new classifications for assistants.

Doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you need 10 assistants to do your job, then GUBBIN......YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED FOR THE JOB!!!!!!!!

IN OUR HUMBLE OPINION, Gubbin, Carol Johnson etal should be given their walking papers.

Here we are supposedly celebrating the 100 year anniversary of our library system, and Barbara Gubbin is throwing out all historical documentation of that 100 years!!!!

IF Gubbin got rid of all that excess personnel, she wouldn't need to turn the Ideson building into office space. (BY THE WAY...half of the second floor of the City Hall annex is vacate...there's your office space Barbara!!!!)

Take the money spent on all that "prop-up" personnel and give us back our library and the history it held.

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."-Plato

713-722-9258
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