Temporary personnel director re-appointed

Marlborough - With the negotiations of union contracts quickly descending upon the mayor, city attorneys and the Personnel Department, the City Council is still split over Mayor Nancy Stevens’s Feb. 9 recommendation of Karen Kisty to the position of director of personnel.

    “With union negotiations, a personnel director is an important position to have in place,” Ward 7 City Councilor Donald Landers said. “We are a $21 million corporation with 700 employees on the city side and about another 700 on the school side.”

    The council’s split opinion became more apparent after two letters from Stevens crossed the council floor March 23: one put Karen Kisty’s name forward for an additional 60-day term as interim personnel director and the other recommended her for the permanent appointment.

    Confirming Landers’s concerns about getting a director in place, Stevens said in the letter sent to the committee, “The position must remain filled in light of the collective bargaining negotiations [in which] the director of personnel plays an integral part.”  

    The difference among councilors began in February after Councilor at-Large Patricia Pope and Ward 1 City Councilor Joseph Delano raised concerns that the position was not properly advertised, running the weeks between Christmas 2008 and New Year’s Day. This led to discussions on the public perception of the appointment of Stevens’s former aid, Karen Kisty, to the position, which resulted in a vote to send the request back to the mayor.

    Despite documented reports that the position was advertised for a 60-day period beginning in November 2008 and ending in the beginning of January, the mayor was asked to re-advertise the position. During this time the councilors also requested legal advice from the city solicitor about the ability to extend Kisty’s 60-day temporary appointment or to make another 60-day appointment.

    His interpretation of the statutes, City Solicitor Donald Ryder explained, would give Stevens the ability to re-appoint Kisty to an additional 60-day term. The appointment of a permanent director he debated about at length with the council during the Feb. 23 City Council meeting.

    Ryder also said that because the council rejected the mayor’s appointment of Kisty during the Feb. 9 council meeting, they have rejected the first process of appointment. In doing this, he further explained, they have triggered Statute 39-1, which then means that the mayor thereafter needs to make another appointment within one month.

    Recommending that the matter be referred to the Attorney General’s Office, Councilor at-Large Stephen Levy said that he disagreed with Ryder’s opinion.

    Councilor at-Large Michael Ossing respectfully disagreed with Levy.

    “My interpretation is you can make as many appointments as you like,” Ossing said.

   Despite the varying opinions of the city councilors, the majority vote went in favor of sending the matter of the 60-day appointment of Kisty as acting personnel director effective March 9 to the Rules Committee and the Attorney General’s Office. Regarding the permanent appointment of Kisty to personnel director the committee, with no discussion, voted to table the matter.

   In the letters to the council, Stevens said that she has begun the re-advertising process. 

    Commenting on the decision of the committee, Stevens said that she is following the opinion of Ryder and has re-appointed Kisty to another 60-day term as the temporary director of personnel.