Compensation study presented to Greensboro City Council

Human Resources director Connie Hammond and consultants from two firms presented their findings from a compensation study that began in late 2010 to city council and staff in two separate meetings on Feb. 16.

Among the findings of the study is a recommendation for implementing compensation increases to make Greensboro's compensation packages, including benefits, more competitive with comparative cities and municipalities. The total cost of the proposed increases comes out to $1,697,347, which would bring compensation and benefits to the 50th percentile with comparable cities but would not include a reduction in compensation for employees who are above the target range.

Only three city council members showed up for the first presentation — Nancy Hoffmann, Marikay Abuzuaiter and Nancy Vaughan — though Zack Matheny slipped in about 20 minutes after the presentation was supposed to start.

Hammond said a compensation study like this hasn't been done in 20 years, so it isn't surprising there is some adjustment necessary. The study compared Greensboro to 22 cities for the study, which made the cut by being within 300 miles, having a population of over 100,000 and a metro area of between 100,000 (like High Point) and 1.8 million (such as Charlotte). Most of the cities were in North Carolina and Virginia, with a few in outlying states.

The comparison compensation study was completed using "benchmark jobs," meaning specifics of which specific positions are above or below the target compensation rate is still being calculated and should be completed next month. Matheny said he would want to see specifics of which jobs would be impacted before he voted on it.

Vaughan asked interim City Manager Denise Turner Roth if the increases could be incorporated into a "no tax increase budget," and was told a rough estimate of these costs was already factored into the budget council has been discussing.

"The job market out there is not great — I am personally experiencing it," said Matheny, who is currently unemployed besides his council position. "All of city’s employees would love a raise and our constituents may say 'Why are you giving them a raise? They should be happy to have a job.' There is a lot of education that needs to go into this."

The city is below the target range around the 50th percentile for five benefit categories, including wellness incentives, disability benefits, paid holidays, education assistance and retiree medical over 65. The city is one paid holiday behind its target range.

Abuzuaiter said the proposed increase in wellness incentives could save the city money on health insurance in the long run, which a presenter confirmed but said it would take approximately three years before the savings were visible.

The city is within its target range in five other benefit categories and above in three: dental, life and medical insurance. In general, the city's compensation rate was closer to the goals than in benefit categories, with 10 general categories falling within the range while two are above and three are below. Longevity, probationary increases and take-home patrol cars were all below the target compensation range.

City staff: Nothing improper about mayor's meeting with human relations commission

UPDATE: Interim City Attorney Tom Pollard tells City Manager Rashad Young and members of Greensboro City Council today:

An issue was raised by a speaker last night about a meeting of six members of the Human Relations Commission. Mayor Knight and Councilman Matheny met with these members at their request. It is my understanding that members of the city staff were not present at this meeting. The Human Relations Commission has 15 members. Under the Open Meetings Law, an official meeting of a public body is defined as a meeting of a majority of the members of such body. A meeting of six members of the Human Relations Commission is not an official meeting of the Human Relations Commission. There was no violation of the Open Meetings Law or the Commission’s Rules of Procedure. If questions, please let me know.

ORIGINAL POST: At last night's Greensboro City Council meeting, Human Relations Commissioner Michael Roberto alleged that a May 16 meeting between Mayor Bill Knight, Councilman Zack Matheny and select members of the commission was illegal, indicating that he was not notified of the meeting. Another commissioner, Marikay Abuzuaiter, also indicated that she was excluded.

Matheny has inquired with City Manager Rashad Young about whether there was any problem with the gathering.

Assistant City Manager Denise Turner Roth responded in an e-mail this morning:

A quorum [spelling corrected] of the Commission is eight members so it did not constitute an official meeting of the Commission. There is nothing preventing you from having met with them. Anthony Wade confirmed this with legal this morning.

Matheny tells me: "There was no quorum and none needed."

I'll be digging deeper into this.

Human relations commission to weigh in on landfill

Greensboro Human Relations Commissioner Marikay Abuzuaiter spoke at Laughlin Memorial United Methodist Church last night.

The Greensboro Human Relations Commission will submit a resolution related to the White Street Landfill tomorrow ahead of a city council vote to seek a private company to operate a permitted portion of the landfill. This will be the third request for proposals for solid waste issued by the city in as many years.

“I think we’ve turned the corner on this,” Commissioner Michael Roberto said, speaking at a community meeting at Laughlin Memorial United Methodist Church in northeast Greensboro last night. “There may be people who have doubts, but I think the political will here, the moral rectitude of this fight has made the difference here. The fact that they have pulled out this RFP is an act of desperation.”

Roberto and fellow commissioner Marikay Abuzuaiter said they expect their chair, Abdel Nuriddin, to make the presentation.

“When we read that resolution tomorrow night – when Dr. Nuriddin reads that resolution – here is a human relations commission saying to the city council: No, you can’t do this,” Roberto said.

“Commissioner Roberto and I fought long and hard for this,” said Abuzuaiter, who was one of a number of candidates for city council at the meeting. “It took six months. There were many, many times when he and I got thrown under the bus.”

After the meeting, Abuzuaiter said it had been difficult to get a resolution before council, but declined to discuss its contents.

Several speakers urged people to go to the polls to vote out four members of council that have pursued reopening the landfill: Mayor Bill Knight, at-large Councilman Danny Thompson, District 4 Councilwoman Mary Rakestraw and District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade. The primary takes place in October.

“We are nonpartisan, but if we don’t see a change in the four people that we have on council right now, we’re going to continue to see the same thing in 2011, 2012 and 2013,” said James Burroughs III, the executive director of Democracy at Home, a voter mobilization group. “And as a reminder, we had some of the highest turnout in 2008. We thought maybe we’d reached the mark with the election of our first African-American president. But then, in 2009, Yvonne Johnson lost by a little more than 900 votes – our first black mayor.”

Ralph Johnson, a member of Concerned Citizens of Northeast Greensboro, said Thompson should be held accountable for pushing to reopen the landfill after stating that he was not interested in doing so during his 2009 campaign.

Speakers expressed astonishment at the notion that council members have received significant encouragement from constituents to reopen the landfill.

“The citizens are opposed to it across racial lines, across generational lines,” said John Rich, who lives in Rakestraw’s district. “Everybody knows that if we want to move forward in race relations, this is not the way to do it. If you want to put a big dump within a major beltway, it’s just outrageous. You talk about the economics of it – I know a little bit about economics. I’ve worked in finance for 35 years, and I can tell you when you are able to grow your tax base, that exceeds what it costs to put gas in trucks to take the waste elsewhere.”

Clarification on human relations commission and landfill

Editorial note: The following report was revised for print and then cut for space considerations. The report clarifies some aspects of the controversy over the human relations commission's authority to act on the landfill dispute.

The battle over plans to reopen the White Street Landfill moved from city council to the Greensboro Human Relations Commission last week, and a stream of speakers, asked the commission to pass a resolution requesting that the city council rescind its decision.

Former Mayor Yvonne Johnson asked the commission to file a complaint against the city over the landfill. After the mayor spoke, Human Relations Director Anthony Wade entered the meeting and warned members that they needed to read a memo issued by the legal department before proceeding. Ultimately, the commission decided to hold a special hearing on the landfill in the next couple weeks.

The commission’s duties include studying and making “recommendations concerning problems in any or all fields of human relationship” and encouraging “fair treatment and mutual understanding among all racial and ethnic groups in the city”; anticipating and discovering “those practices and customs most likely to create animosity and unrest among racial and ethnic groups and by consultations seek a solution as these problems arise or are anticipated” and making “recommendations to the city council designed to promote goodwill and harmony among racial and ethnic groups in the city.”

Wade said the question about whether the commission holds the authority to investigate the city came up during an executive committee meeting a week earlier. Associate General Counsel Jamiah Waterman noted in the memo that the commission was established to investigate complaints of discrimination. He said the duties of the body “are narrowly defined and do not include investigating the city,” adding that it would be a conflict of interest. “Therefore,” he said, “the CHR does not have the authority to investigate the city concerning its handling of the White Street Landfill unless it is directed to do so by the city council.”

Wade said he believes the ordinances provision allowing the commission to make recommendations to the council designed to promote goodwill and harmony among racial and ethnic groups would accommodate any desire the commission might have to make a statement to council about the landfill.

Wayne Abraham, a former chairman of the commission who is running for city council at large this year, pleaded with his former colleagues to intervene.

“City council didn’t always want to hear what we had to say,” he said. “But it was our job to say it to them anyway, whether we liked it or not, whether they liked it or not. Whether we would get reappointed for telling them the truth or not was immaterial. Our job was to do what was right for the citizens.”

Previously.

City attorney: HRC can't investigate city over White Street Landfill

The secret memo from the Greensboro Legal Department cautioning the citizen human relations commission to butt out of the White Street Landfill debate is no longer secret.

Back story.

Landfill fight moves to human relations commission

Harold C. Fields expresses opposition to the reopening of the White Street Landfill.

A group of constituents angered by the Greensboro City Council’s decision to reopen the White Street Landfill and its handling of political redistricting asked the human relations commission tonight to pass a resolution asking the council to reconsider.

The commission meeting, held at Windsor Recreation Center in District 1, had the feel of an extended session of last night’s marathon city council session, which ended at 2 a.m., with one notable difference: The human relations commission responded sympathetically to the citizens, and some vowed to fight alongside the citizens.

“I know in your ordinance you have the capacity to file a complaint against the council,” former Mayor Yvonne Johnson said. “I’d like for you to consider doing that, because this is not only an economic issue; it is a racial issue. We’ve worked hard to bring this community together, and [reopening the landfill] is a dividing factor for the people in this community.”

The first duty of the human relations commission, which was established in the early 1960s to help the city navigate a period of racial turmoil as black citizens demanded equal treatment, that is listed in the city’s code of ordinances is “to study and make recommendations concerning problems in any or all fields of human relationship and encourage fair treatment and mutual understanding among all racial and ethnic groups in the city.”

The ordinance also states that “the practice of discrimination against any individual or group is contrary to good public policy and detrimental to the peace, progress and welfare of the city.”

After the former mayor spoke, Human Relations Director Anthony Wade entered the meeting and counseled the commission to proceed with caution. Only an hour before the meeting he had received a memo from City Attorney J. Rita Danish. Afterward he said the memo was protected from public release by attorney-client privilege and he would be asking the citizen commissioners to come by his office to review it in person because he does not feel comfortable sharing copies without clarification from the attorney.

Wade summarized Danish’s legal advice as saying that the city’s ordinance narrowly defines the duties of the human relations commission and does not include a provision for the commission to investigate the city, and that further it would be a conflict of interest for the commission to do so.

Wayne Abraham, who formerly chaired the body, said the commission made recommendations to council on a number of issues during his tenure, including the conduct of police officers, sexual orientation and the residual effect of the 1979 Klan-Nazi shootings.

“City council didn’t always want to hear what we had to say,” he said. “But it was our job to say it to them anyway, whether we liked it or not, whether they liked it or not. Whether we would get reappointed for telling them the truth or not was immaterial. Our job was to do what was right for the citizens. So I’m asking you, my fellow commissioners and citizens, to do the same.”

Commissioner Michael Roberto asked Abraham how he dealt with restrictions imposed by the city’s legal department.

“I was advised many times by the city attorney not to take action, and I promptly took care of what I needed to do anyway,” Abraham responded. “I think the distinction that you need to draw is there’s difference between you taking action in a resolution and the word ‘complaint.’ So you might not file a complaint against the council, but you can certainly resolve to deal with an issue…. The city attorney’s job is to limit the liability to the city at all costs, but that’s not your job.

“Choose your language carefully,” he added.

Speaker after speaker argued that the decision of the council’s narrow conservative majority to reopen the landfill is racist.

“I need for you, the human relations commission, to intercede for us humans, to go to them and say, ‘Hey, listen, stop, wait a minute, hear what these people are saying,’” said Sharon Hightower, a resident of southeast Greensboro. “Redistricting, early voting, landfill, $5 million grant they took from the east and made it a citywide issue – these things are serious, serious issues. Not only are they racist issues, they’re classist issues. Because if you’re lower income, you’re disenfranchised. And that’s the way they treat us. We make money. We spend money. We pay taxes. We buy homes. We got mortgage payments, car payments. We are valuable people, too.”

Chris Brook, a staff attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice who is providing pro bono representation to landfill opponents, has indicated in a letter to City Manager Rashad Young that African Americans will disproportionately “bear the environmental and economic burdens” of reopening the landfill, explaining that while the city’s overall combined black and Hispanic population is only 47.7 percent, “the community most directly impacted by the White Street Landfill is overwhelmingly African-American and Hispanic.”

“I feel that if dumping garbage on the minority of us for the benefit of the majority of us and doing it in the name of all of us is not environmental racism, what is?” asked Cheryl Hopkins, a landfill opponent from predominantly white west Greensboro

John Jones, a resident of Woodmere Park who lives near the landfill, said, “I heard the gentleman say, ‘There’s a memo that you need to read before you make a resolution.’ I ask myself: ‘Am I wasting my time?”

One commissioner’s response was an emphatic no.

“If you’re wasting your time, then so am I, because that really infuriates me,” said Roberto, a District 4 representative. “I don’t live in your section of town. But what happens to you, happens to me as well. I don’t know how to prove that unless there comes a time when I’m not a commissioner and I have to lay down under a truck, and do what I did back in the ’60s. Because I did that, too.”

Commissioner Janice Reaves, a District 1 representative, quoted from a poem that juxtaposes lies on a throne with truth on a scaffold, and professed faith in God.

“He is not going to let us fail,” she said. “He is not going to let us go back to the 1960s and 1950s.”

Chairman Abdel Nuriddin said the commission will hold a special session to consider passing a resolution on the landfill.

Wade, his staff counterpart, expressed reservations after the meeting. He said the landfill issue differs from an instance in 2009 when the human relations commission passed a resolution calling on the city council to express regret over the 1979 shootings. In that case, he said, the city manager had requested that the human relations commission review the findings of a truth and reconciliation commission. One of the duties outlined by ordinance for the human relations commission is “to perform such other duties as may be assigned it from time to time by the city council.”

Commissioner Michael Picarelli, a District 3 representative who is also the executive director of the Guilford County Republican Party, said the commission needs to walk a fine line.

"My interpretation of what my role is, is to engage the community and be a voice back to the city council," he said. "We should be able to go to the council and say, 'The community doesn't like this.' The gray area is when the commission allows itself to create policy."

With hopes waning that the landfill can be blocked by legislative means, opponents are now gearing up for a fight in the courts and in the streets.

Chairman Abdel Nuriddin asked Johnson to what degree she believes human relations might be strained by reopening the landfill.

“I think they’re going to be strained to the max because the community, one, has an attorney,” the former mayor said. “They are going to use everything legally. When I say, ‘By any means necessary,’ I certainly mean legally. And there may be some civil disobedience as it was in the sixties. But we’re committed that this landfill is not going to open.”

Goldie Wells, a former council member who – like Johnson – lives near the landfill, suggested opponents might use demonstrations to embarrass the council by putting Greensboro in the national spotlight.

“How would it look if the civil rights museum is right here, the civil rights movement started here and then we go out and start some more marching,” Wells said. “And then the world looks at Greensboro. Do you think anybody’s going to come here and start a new business? Do you think anybody wants to raise their children in a city that is racially divided?"