The Winston-Salem Council voted unanimously tonight to adopt a resolution stating that the city manager and city attorney found no evidence to substantiate allegations of forgery, perjury, unaddressed incidents of sexual harassment, failure to respond in a timely manner to a medical situation and retaliation in the sanitation department.
The statement was issued in response to remarks made by several current and former employees to council in a public comment period during a Feb. 18 meeting.
The formal statement indicated that council was prohibited due to state personnel privacy law and a federal healthcare privacy law from disclosing additional information, but directed the city manager to try to obtain written authorizations from affected employees so that additional details of the investigation could be released at a later time.
"We are very willing and anxious to provide the information," Mayor Allen Joines said. "We take those allegations very seriously."
The city council met twice in closed session to discuss the matter.
"We did a thorough investigation," City Manager Lee Garrity said after the vote. "It did take several interviews. This all had to be reviewed by the city attorney. The city council members had questions. And then we had to determine what the city council could and couldn't release."
Victor Bethea, a sanitation laborer who was among the current and former employees who addressed council in February, declined to comment tonight on council's formal statement.
Bethea explained to council members how he had been implicated in the firing of another employee, Angelia Byrd, the driver for his crew.
"In reference to Ms. Byrd I was the person that they forged his name on false accusations about her that I did not state or did not write a statement to," Bethea said during the Feb. 18 city council meeting.
Garrity told YES! Weekly in late March that no forgery occurred, and that the matter had arose because of confusion on the part of Deputy Sanitation Director Randy Britton during a hearing for Byrd to appeal her termination.
Donald Gore, a sanitation driver who complained that he had suffered a minor stroke after driving a truck that lacked air conditioning on a hot summer day, also declined to comment this evening.
Showing posts with label Angelia Byrd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angelia Byrd. Show all posts
Sanitation director says he'll request new trucks with AC
Winston-Salem Sanitation Director Johnnie Taylor told a city panel on Tuesday evening that his department will be requesting four new automated rear-loader garbage trucks to replace vehicles in the fleet that lack air conditioning.
The remaining 21 vehicles have working air conditioning systems.
The wife of sanitation driver Donald Gore told city council that her husband collapsed on the floor on several occasions upon returning home on hot days after driving a route in a truck without air conditioning. Angelia Byrd, a driver who was fired last June, told YES! Weekly she passed out on the side of a road on the verge of a heatstroke and had to be treated by a doctor. And Curtis McLaurin, a driver, said laborers have experienced heatstroke in the past. The complaints are detailed in a YES! Weekly cover story that also explored allegations of managerial misconduct and sexual harassment, along with tensions between employees and residential customers related to backyard trash collection.
Assistant City Manager Greg Turner told YES! Weekly last month that the it costs from $200,000 to $250,000 to replace the trucks.
Councilman Dan Besse responded cautiously to Taylor's report after the meeting, saying that he didn't know whether the request would be included in the city's upcoming 2013-2014 budget. Besse also noted that Taylor did not mention health and safety concerns as reasons for replacing the trucks. The three council members who heard the presentation during the public works committee meeting -- including Robert Clark, who chairs the committee, along with Besse and James Taylor Jr. -- did not question the sanitation director on that count.
"He didn't go into any detail of the degree of health and safety concerns," Besse said. "Certainly it would be relevant to council considerations as to whether we have drivers experiencing difficulties in the non-air conditioned vehicles. The reason it's relevant to know whether it gets included in the city manager's budget is that level of inquiry may be superfluous. We may not need to know whether there's a serious concern if it's addressed in the budget.
"I don't mean to discount anything anybody says in open comment," Besse continued, alluding to statements Donald and Mary Gore addressed to city council in February, "but when you're dealing with significant expenditures you need to ask the question of whether you're dealing with an isolated anecdote that's not well founded or a pattern of problems.
Besse did ask the sanitation director about safety considerations related to backyard collection, a service that the city provides to residents that attest that no one in their household is physically able to roll their cart out to the curb.
Taylor responded by saying that employee injuries have decreased since the city began the transition from universal backyard service to mainly curbside pickup, adding, "Less exposure has definitely benefited the department."
Taylor said, "Most of those injuries that I've reviewed have been slips, trips or falls. Some of those things are the result of maybe holes in the yard. Other things we deal with are dew in the morning a slippery surface."
Taylor said employees have not experienced a significant number of punctures, cuts and other injuries resulting from directly handling garbage bags in the course of performing backyard service.
Clark requested that staff provide detailed information about workers compensation claims due to injuries by sanitation employees.
Besse asked Taylor about the department's policies regulating interactions between employees and members of the public. One of the former employees, Angelia Byrd, was fired after the city manager upheld a finding that she had cursed and threatened a residential customer, and some employees have said backyard service increases the likelihood of conflict with members of the public.
"There are both written and informal [policies]," Taylor said. "The written policy needs to be updated. The informal information is provided in the tailgate meetings, which provides them several options to deal with any problem situations. Number one being, they are authorized to leave the scene. Two being they have the opportunity to contact the supervisor through CityLink. And to answer your question, we are working on updating all written policies to be distributed to employees."
The remaining 21 vehicles have working air conditioning systems.
The wife of sanitation driver Donald Gore told city council that her husband collapsed on the floor on several occasions upon returning home on hot days after driving a route in a truck without air conditioning. Angelia Byrd, a driver who was fired last June, told YES! Weekly she passed out on the side of a road on the verge of a heatstroke and had to be treated by a doctor. And Curtis McLaurin, a driver, said laborers have experienced heatstroke in the past. The complaints are detailed in a YES! Weekly cover story that also explored allegations of managerial misconduct and sexual harassment, along with tensions between employees and residential customers related to backyard trash collection.
Assistant City Manager Greg Turner told YES! Weekly last month that the it costs from $200,000 to $250,000 to replace the trucks.
Councilman Dan Besse responded cautiously to Taylor's report after the meeting, saying that he didn't know whether the request would be included in the city's upcoming 2013-2014 budget. Besse also noted that Taylor did not mention health and safety concerns as reasons for replacing the trucks. The three council members who heard the presentation during the public works committee meeting -- including Robert Clark, who chairs the committee, along with Besse and James Taylor Jr. -- did not question the sanitation director on that count.
"He didn't go into any detail of the degree of health and safety concerns," Besse said. "Certainly it would be relevant to council considerations as to whether we have drivers experiencing difficulties in the non-air conditioned vehicles. The reason it's relevant to know whether it gets included in the city manager's budget is that level of inquiry may be superfluous. We may not need to know whether there's a serious concern if it's addressed in the budget.
"I don't mean to discount anything anybody says in open comment," Besse continued, alluding to statements Donald and Mary Gore addressed to city council in February, "but when you're dealing with significant expenditures you need to ask the question of whether you're dealing with an isolated anecdote that's not well founded or a pattern of problems.
Besse did ask the sanitation director about safety considerations related to backyard collection, a service that the city provides to residents that attest that no one in their household is physically able to roll their cart out to the curb.
Taylor responded by saying that employee injuries have decreased since the city began the transition from universal backyard service to mainly curbside pickup, adding, "Less exposure has definitely benefited the department."
Taylor said, "Most of those injuries that I've reviewed have been slips, trips or falls. Some of those things are the result of maybe holes in the yard. Other things we deal with are dew in the morning a slippery surface."
Taylor said employees have not experienced a significant number of punctures, cuts and other injuries resulting from directly handling garbage bags in the course of performing backyard service.
Clark requested that staff provide detailed information about workers compensation claims due to injuries by sanitation employees.
Besse asked Taylor about the department's policies regulating interactions between employees and members of the public. One of the former employees, Angelia Byrd, was fired after the city manager upheld a finding that she had cursed and threatened a residential customer, and some employees have said backyard service increases the likelihood of conflict with members of the public.
"There are both written and informal [policies]," Taylor said. "The written policy needs to be updated. The informal information is provided in the tailgate meetings, which provides them several options to deal with any problem situations. Number one being, they are authorized to leave the scene. Two being they have the opportunity to contact the supervisor through CityLink. And to answer your question, we are working on updating all written policies to be distributed to employees."
City council hears report on discontent in sanitation department
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| Council members pose for a photo to commemorate the city's centennial. |
"We do take these issues very seriously, and that's why we have asked for this investigation," Mayor Allen Joines said after council adjourned in public following the closed session. The mayor added that he was limiting his statement to avoid preempting a formal statement to be drafted by City Manager Lee Garrity and City Attorney Angela Carmon on behalf of the city council and released in the coming weeks.
Former and current sanitation employees have raised several issues of concern about the department, including allegations of sexual harassment, unsafe working conditions and disrespectful treatment by citizens who are customers of the department's public services. Most troubling perhaps is an allegation by a sanitation laborer captured on an audio recording that a supervisor forged his signature on a statement.
The supervisor, Darrell Moody, can also be heard on a recording obtained by YES! Weekly, pressuring the laborer, Victor Bethea, to change his statement and threatening to write his own statement in substitution. Both incidents took place during an administrative investigation that ultimately led to the dismissal of a driver named Angelia Byrd who was involved with a confrontation with a resident over whether the resident should be receiving special backyard trash pickup.
The allegations were detailed in an investigative report published by YES! Weekly earlier this month. Garrity, Assistant City Manager Greg Turner and Sanitation Director Johnnie Taylor, along with Carmon, met in closed session with council to answer members' questions.
Joines said the city will have to strike a balance in its statement between providing adequate detail to maintain public confidence and protecting the privacy rights of employees.
"It's a very difficult position that the city is in," he said. "We have to be careful in how that's worded to protect the rights of employees, but we do want to reassure the public that the department is being managed appropriately."
Addressing council during the public speakers portion of the meeting before council went into closed session, Byrd reminded council members that she had come before them last month with allegations of sexual harassment, forgery and wrongful termination. She asked Joines and the other council members what came of the investigation and whether anything had been done about it.
Joines responded that council would be unable to publicly address many of the allegations because of restrictions on the release of personnel information.
Byrd said after the meeting that she expects to meet with Garrity to receive a report on the findings of the city's internal investigation.
Related to the personnel problems in the sanitation department, employees have raised questions about possibly abuses in the city's curbside garbage pickup program, which allows residents to receive backyard service simply by filing an application that attests that no one in the household is capable of moving trash to the curb. About 5 percent of households in Winston-Salem receive backyard service in Winston-Salem, compared to about 1 percent in other cities across the state. A citizens budget review committee has recommended that the city require residents to obtain a doctor's note to continue to receive backyard service -- a change that would save taxpayers an estimated $114,000.
"I've been a bit concerned about the large number of exemptions," Joines said on Monday. "I've felt for some time that we should maybe take a look at that issue and perhaps adopt a more formal policy and require more detail in the applications."
He added that he expects staff to make a detailed report to the city council's public works committee on the matter in coming months.
Councilman Dan Besse, who represents the Southwest Ward, has said he supports the current policy, arguing that requiring the elderly and people with disabilities to obtain a doctor's note would subject them to indignity and unwarranted inconvenience.
"Thus far a majority of the Winston-Salem council has come down on the side of the elderly, frail and disabled," he said earlier this month. "That's my vote, and I'm sticking to it."
In other news, the council unanimously approved a resolution in support of legislation filed by NC Rep. Ed Hanes Jr. that would allow county commissions to set aside the most recent tax reappraisal. Constituents in predominantly black neighborhoods on the east side of Winston-Salem have sought relief from the recent round of revaluations, which they contend have artificially diminished the value of their properties.
Council also delayed a vote on change orders to Blythe Construction and HDR Engineering for work on stormwater management and new streets at the Wake Forest Innovation Quarter on the eastern flank of downtown.
Councilwoman Wanda Merschel, who represents the Northwest Ward, said she opposed the change orders because of escalating costs due to unforeseen environmental contamination.
"At some point someone's going to have to explain to me what could have been done to avoid $5.2 million in change orders," she said.
Turner, the assistant city manager, said fly ash and fuel oil were discovered that were likely created by a physical plant and incinerator operated by the city. He said state would require the city to clean up the mess one way or another.
"This is our fly ash and our fuel oil poured on top of it," said Councilman Robert Clark, who represents the West Ward, "and we have to clean it up."
Merschel replied, "This one is hard.... This one just looks bad for taxpayers."
Before council could take a vote, Councilman James Taylor Jr., who represents the Southeast Ward, made a motion for no consideration. The parliamentary procedure results in the matter being placed on the agenda for the next meeting in April. After listening to objections from Merschel, along with Mayor Pro Tem Vivian Burke and Councilwoman Denise D. Adams, Taylor said he found himself on the fence and surmised that he might be in a position to cast the swing vote on the contract.
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