Thread by @socialistdogmom

it’s amazing i’m still finding new kinds of meetings to attend. i’ve not been to a meeting of the emergency communication center board before.

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1082421646072401920

interim city manager said the situation regarding the police data extraction would be on the agenda... i don’t see it.

love a public meeting held in a locked building with no signs about the location or existence of the meeting. highly accessible to the public.

i don’t know all the folks at the table - this body is made up of folks from the city, county, and uva, so i’ll do my best to be clear about who is speaking but i don’t actually know.
the ECC’s new director is starting things off. nbc29.com/story/38931751…

they are... very short staffed. he says one employee worked 21 straight days of 12 hour shifts recently. (that is appalling!)

they’re working hard to recruit & hire - nearly two dozen interviews scheduled in the next two weeks & they’ve moved the new employee testing location from the county to the ECC building here on ivy.

a woman at the table emphasizes the importance of diversity in new hires, saying maybe an equity officer should be on the hiring panel. kinda creepy emphasis on “determining how they self-identify”

the representative from the uva police department says you can’t just do media blitzes to recruit - “you actually have to go get the talent that you want” - go to where they live, go to their churches (no thank you, officer)

ecc director:
“our supervisors are not really supervising - they’re conducting training.”
folks are coming in overtime & on-call to conduct trainings. they are short staffed & have high turnover.

he’s proposing bringing in an outside entity to handle the training needs, rather than permanently hiring staff to handle it. currently, 8 supervisors are conducting trainings. he says an outside contractor would be more consistent & easier on staff.

“the amount of money that this contract costs is the same as the amount we’ve spent in the last six months in our overtime costs.”
he’s asking for an emergency procurement to cover the cost of an outside contractor.

chief brackney asks if any competitive bids were done? how did they identify their training needs? she says the contractor here does not specialize in this work & their team is overwhelmingly white & male, mostly ex-military with experience in defense contracting.

she argues that having supervisors do the training is GOOD - “it doesn’t occur in a vacuum,” new employees are being trained & supervised simultaneously.

director neulen says he’s worked with this company before & is a little defensive about it. i’d like to dig more into his relationship with this company...

they’re referring to it as HSSI - i assume that’s homeland security solutions, inc

brackney is very firm that she will not vote in favor of this without a lot more information about the process for getting the bid & the kind of product they’ll deliver.
it pains me to agree with a cop, but she’s asking important questions here.

brackney: “part of recruitment and hiring is having an overall plan” “and it cannot be hodge podge”
she says using emergency procurements to solve this problem is part of the problem. we can’t keep operating in crisis management.

asst city manager leslie beauregard is trying to mediate - explaining what she believes director neulen’s position is to brackney. she supports this as a temporary solution.
neulen interrupts brackney & she IS. NOT. HAVING. IT.

leslie says she trusts that neulen & his staff know their needs best.
neulen: the ecc has not been at full staff capacity in 20yrs. they’ve struggled with training & retention for a long time
(so why not make training a permanent position? why this expensive temporary solution?)

he says this company can’t provide a detailed description of the work they’re gonna do without a guarantee they will get paid
(is he stupid or lying? has he ever responded to an RFP before? that’s exactly how it works)

the blonde woman from uva (i cant remember her name or job title right now - but i’ve seen her on panels about safety before!) say she’s also a little uncomfortable about getting a proposal from only one company.

sorry, she’s gloria graham, uva’s VP of safety & securituvaemergency.virginia.edu/gloria-graham-…Rc1X

“it makes sense, but i can’t agree with that,” neulen says to graham’s calm, reasonable explanation of why this maybe isn’t the best solution.
his insistence that we give this specific company $200k is making me really uncomfortable.

graham wants to talk to their other clients.
neulen: “this is a known entity to me, somebody i can work with.” he says they’ve spent a lot of time working with him.
“they’re a contractor, that’s what contractors do when they’re trying to get business,” said graham, exasperatedly

another man at the table says “i don’t have a real good feel on what the sense of urgency is today,” suggesting we maybe slow this process down & think about it.
neulen insists immediate action must be taken & it has to be this vendor.

“we are cutting corners,” neulen says about the current situation. he’s making it sound quite dire, but it also sounds like some internal restructuring could alleviate the issue of having no centralized internal point of contact for new hire training.

graham says she’d feel more comfortable if she had a more active role in the process. brackney wants a needs assessment. she wants to know how much money has been spent just on training. neulen doesn’t know.

brackney: “you can’t just put very general things in there.”
if mistakes get made, people are going to want to know what the dispatcher’s training looked like. lesson plans, specifics, the trainers’ backgrounds...

“as a public safety professional,” graham says she’s uncomfortable hiring an outsider to train these people. you wouldn’t do that with firefighters.
a man at the table says he’s inclined to support the director... simply by virtue of the fact that he’s the director?

brackney is again pushing for more information about the URGENCY of the issue - does this warrant emergency procurement & rushing headlong into this contract?
she doesn’t disagree that training is important & a solution is needed, but doesn’t think this is the solution.

“i don’t see how a $200,000 contract solves a $20,000 issue,” brackney says. neulen is completely still. i’ve never even seen this man before but i get the strong sense that being disagreed with by these women is making him very angry.

the man i think is from the county fire department says he has trust in the executive director & they’ll hold him accountable for the outcome.
leslie looks a little disgusted with him.

graham: “i think an organization this size absolutely should have a training coordinator.”
if this has been a problem for years... make a permanent internal hire! it seems very obvious to me?

hm, unclear what the look on leslie’s face was about because now she’s echoing the same points. she says she’s “ok with a certain level of risk” and trusts the director.
she’s willing to approve funding for whatever gets us to a solution, “i don’t even care what that looks like”

aaaand there it is. graham to neulen: “aside from the company you worked for before, who else did you reach out to?”

brackney says “you don’t just throw anything out there,” that this kind of thought process is a disservice to dispatchers & the community.

“we can’t just decide that we think this is our need. it can’t be a hunch.” brackney is still pushing for a more thorough assessment of what exactly is needed.
neulen says this contract will get him through the current emergency while he comes up with a longer term solution.

uva police rep says more information is needed, to neulen: “it’s not saying you’re not doing the right things, it’s just not clearly communicated.”
it sounds like most people at the table just want information he should have & can’t or won’t give.

“gosh, we need stability.” one of the men who earlier stated his belief that the extensive hiring process for the director constitutes a mandate & anything he proposes is correct reiterates that.

“i’m not sure how much effort can be put toward making a bunch of phone calls to see who else is out there,” neulen says. things are so dire here he just doesn’t have the time to find a contractor he isn’t already close friends with. weird.

hearing now from some dispatchers sitting in on the meeting. “we need 12 people. we NEED 12 people.” he talks about the unbearable overtime they’ve worked. “every single one of us is totally burned out. it is a crisis.”

brackney asks what percentage of his time he spent on training other people. this dispatcher is not a supervisor but is one of the training officer. his supervisor is speaking now.

when a trainee hits the floor, they’re paired with a training officer or a supervisor. they’re trained “minute by minute, hour by hour.” the supervisor reviews the paperwork from the training officer at the end of the shift.

she says she’s monitoring a radio herself, too, while trying to monitor the dispatcher she supervises AND his trainee.

this causes an immense about of extra work and extra stress - there is a lot of liability dealing with people who don’t know what they’re doing. (she’s talking about trainees but i would argue that liability is tenfold with an inexperienced contractor!)

brackney: how many trainees were brought on last year?
- 6, but only 2 are still working here. there are 3 trainees now.

wait... there are three people in need of training right now. and he wants $200k for a six month contract. it would be SO MUCH CHEAPER to hire a full time training coordinator. it would make more organizational sense, solve a longstanding problem, and cost less.

it does sound like there are issues with the classroom training portion - it’s also conducted by staff & some classes can only be taught by certain supervisors because of certifications. they often come in on their day off to teach to avoid short staffing the floor.

but it sounds like if the entire operation weren’t so short staffed, things like this wouldn’t involve forcing people to work 10 consecutive days of overtime?

ah, here it is. neulen is now talking about the money they spend keeping the staff members certified to teach those classes. if he’s talking about letting people’s certs lapse because a contractor is handling it... he doesn’t envision this as a temporary solution.

“i thought there would be some level of trust and confidence,” neulen says about his decision not to provide enough information to everyone else at the table.

only brackney, graham, and uva police chief sutton voted no.

neulen now says he would prefer a full time training coordinator if he could actually fill the 12 empty positions.

brackney reminds the table that this body is a joint one between the city, county, and uva. she’s concerned albemarle is dominating the decision making. all three entities absorb the budgetary impact of this body.

and... onto the next item. that was very weird! it sounds like the funding for the contract will be approved by albemarle county in april? gonna look into that and make sure i catch that BOS meeting.

he’s requesting a new position for an overnight supervisor. he is visibly unhappy about clarifying questions asked by brackney and graham. this is a deeply dysfunctional situation.

sorry, the position is called “operations manager”

the operations manager oversees the supervisors. there is currently only one for day shift. adding one to night shift seems reasonable enough. neulen is also asking for a deputy director. brackney has questions.

neulen was hired in late august. he identified the need for a deputy director within his first 30 days - graham had questions about that at the time.
this position will start at over $100k

graham asks neulen if he has someone in mind for the position. he says the operations manager, he’d probably look in-house. “what about the deputy director?” “we’d have to compete it out and advertise it.”
i bet you money he absolutely has someone in mind for it.

deputy county executive doug walker warns there is a risk asking for mid-year, one-time funding for new positions. there is no guarantee they’d continue to get funding in the next fiscal year.

oh fuck that is spicy. brackney had concerns about neulen’s skills & background when he was hired. about the training, IT, and deputy director needs he’s identified, she says she is concerned they’re now looking to hire for tasks they advertised as his position.

neulen says everyone else in the room has a deputy. — everybody else gets a subordinate, i want one, too!

graham says they should be talking about their strategic plan & what they need to ask for in FY2020. she’s concerned that in the numerous conversations she had with neulen between the last meeting & today, he raised NONE of the issues on the agenda today.

graham: “if this is such a dire situation,” they need to work on it collectively “rather than getting surprised on a monday with yet another consultant request.”

he is so angry. so, so indignant and outraged at having to answer questions about his decisions.

neulen tells brackney all her questions are answered in the document he provided. the same document he previously said is short because it CAN’T be expected to answer all her questions.

i’m not quite following the specifics of these requests because i don’t have a copy of the packet... but i just realized the packet doesn’t even contain information about the cost & budget impact of creating these new positions. no dollar amounts.

it isn’t clear to anyone at the table what voting to approve this request would cost. not even a ballpark.

“is the city expecting to have to cough up another hundred thousand dollars for what are county employees,” brackney asks. “whether we like it or not, there are optics to consider.”

county exec walker, heated now: “but you create some of those optics.”

brackney needs numbers on this that she can discuss with the interim city manager before she can vote on it. (this is very reasonable! this could be a significant budget line item)

this meeting was scheduled to end at noon. they were also supposed to have a closed session - they’re debating now if they even have time to have the closed portion of the meeting. i guess i should go.

“we’re not functioning effectively as a board right now,” says fire chief baxter. many at the table voice their agreement. he floats the idea of a retreat... 😳 (god i would love to sit through that absolute fucking disaster)

graham is heated. she says if she provided her board materials the day before a meeting, she would expect them to say no to every single thing she asked for. baxter says “you aren’t dealing with the things barry [neulen] is dealing with.”

county fire chief says the board could really benefit from a retreat.

remember the last government retreat i went to?

https://twitter.com/socialistdogmom/status/1075085590302023680?s=21

the next meeting is february 19th. looks like i’m adding another board to my rotation. there were some troubling revelations today.