City Council Members Raise Concerns About City Attorney Eval—Six out of Eleven Completed Online Survey
by P.D. Lesko
THE ANN ARBOR Charter requires City Council members to evaluate two of the city’s 690 employees: City Administrator Steve Powers and City Attorney Stephen Postema. City Attorney Postema, whose total compensation package costs taxpayers upwards of $235,000 per year, is one of the highest paid city attorneys in the state.
The Ann Arbor Independent has been told that City Council members are concerned the 2014 evaluation of Mr. Potema, which is presently under way, does not allow for a “thoughtful, thorough, credible evaluation” of his performance over the past year, according to one Council member who did participate.
Another Council member, concerned that questions included on the survey are too generic and unrelated to Postema’s job, declined to fill out the evaluation.
“Questions about customer service don’t really speak to what the City Attorney does,” said the Council member.
According to one Council member, in past years the final draft of the City Attorney’s evaluation was presented to all Council members and Stephen Postema in closed session. There was no discussion.
The evaluation is not required to be conducted in closed session, but according to Postema’s contract, “The results of the evaluation shall be in writing and shall be discussed with the Employee in closed session.”
One Council member explained that “there was no discussion of the evaluation or the recommendations. In past, a small group including the mayor just handed Postema more money. His contract is ridiculously one-sided with a golden parachute. We have no business offering any employee a golden parachute.”
Ward 2 Council member Sally Hart Petersen, one of five Council members currently serving on the Council’s Administrative Committee, is in charge of the City Attorney’s evaluation, a job formerly done by long-time Ward 4 Council member and Mayor Pro Tempore Marcia Higgins—defeated in the August 2012 primary election.
Three of the city’s four Democrats running for mayor serve on the Council Administrative Committee: Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere, Ward 3 Council member Christopher Talyor and Petersen. Others on the committee include Mayor Hieftje, who appointed himself in 2008 and current Mayor Pro Tempore Margie Teall, who has served on the committee since 2006.
Petersen, elected in 2012, while not the most recently appointed member of the Administrative Committee (Sabra Briere was appointed in December 2013), is the Council member on the committee with the least amount of time served in office (19 months).
While organizing the City Attorney’s evaluation is by no means an impossible task for an individual with an MBA from Harvard, it’s not clear why Mayor Pro Tempore Margie Teall did not assume responsibility for the City Attorney’s evaluation. Ann Arbor’s Mayor Pro Tempore has seven years of experience on the Administrative Committee and a dozen years under her belt of participating in the evaluations of both the City Administrator and the City Attorney.
Council member Petersen responded to issues raised by some of her Council colleagues concerning the appropriateness of certain questions in the evaluation.
“I sent all the evaluation form drafts to the Council Admin Committee and they had several weeks to review them. No one provided feedback and they knew if they didn’t provide any, this would be interpreted that they were fine with the survey tool,” she explained in an email message.
When asked if her colleagues had raised concerns with her directly about the evaluation form and the fact that it was conducted using an online survey tool, Council member Petersen said one Council member “has expressed frustration because her answers were lost due to an internet disconnection. I have not heard from others.”
City Attorney Postema was hired by City Council a decade ago, and until recently had not lost a case.
His first loss, in May of this year, came at the hands of local attorney Tom Weider in his representation of Ward 3 resident Robert Dascola. The City Clerk refused to allow Dascola to participate in the City Council primary election. Jaqueline Beaudry based her findings on a Charter clause which required residency in a Ward for a defined period of time prior to running for local elected office.
A federal judge found in Dascola’s favor and awarded attorney’s fees—a $37,000 message that Postema’s defense of the case was not the best use of the court’s time and resources.
The City Attorney’s allegedly unilateral decision to defend against the Dascola suit is another sore spot that Council members want to discuss in the evaluation.
Council member Petersen said via email that she’d been told having six Council members participate in the evaluation is a better response rate than in previous years.