HIGH-TECH LYNCHING CONTINUES AGAINST NADALINI
BY STAFF WRITER
The City of Sarasota City Commissioners are seated in their positions of authority, responsibility and accountability to the residents of the City of Sarasota and under the public eyes and scrutiny of those same people, all the time and in every way and there should be no complaints or grumblings when City Commissioners are questioned and held accountable, but it would seem with the current situation and investigation of City Clerk and Auditor, Pamela Nadalini, The City of Sarasota Commissioners, Human Resource Department, City Manager and Attorney are leaving the investigation and decision making to an outside entity regarding a thirty plus year employee, Nadalini, as if they didn’t know her or have enough experience in dealing with her on the job to make a qualified decision. These are questions that burn brightly to be addressed and answered, to hold the Mayor, the Vice-Mayor and the City Commissioners and most off all the human resources department and those at the helm to be accountable and answerable to, first and foremost, how is the alleged problems with the leadership of Nadalini, occurring supposedly over decade failed to be addressed and just now it is a problem? How does one person run a whole department in plain and public view dealing with the public, law enforcement departments, attorneys, and press over the years handling sensitive documents and information requests not have thrown up a red flag of trouble and why weren’t those alleged offenses dealt with? The common answer heard at City Commission meetings has been there are problems with how the Charter Is set up and with the policy and procedures and protocol measures aren’t in place. Huh? How do the City Commissioners have an internal problem for decades and after a decade or more decide to pay out tens of thousands of tax payer money to get someone qualified to look into the problem, and these same outside people are only giving their opinion on what are possible solutions. Is there no one in the human resource department, the City of Sarasota department heads that are qualified to make these suggestions, while being a paid employee of the City of Sarasota, doing their job? Why does it appear that human resources have no power, authority or know how to address problems employees may have? Who hired the human resource department head without giving them the authority or responsibility to do what is common place in other companies and departments? Is the City of Sarasota governmental heads clueless as to how a business is run and what is the law to provide a cooperative and well run staff, departments and serve employees, and the public? How does one complaint filed against Nadalini turn into what seems to be a “Salem Witch Hunt” with anonymous complaints and employees interviewed come forward leading to the recommendation Nadalini is beyond rehabilitation in her leadership style? Another looming question is why wasn’t the HR department leadership as well as the City Manager’s office department head people investigated as there have been obvious problems with interoffice communication and cooperation between key departments over the years? Wouldn’t this be the most fair and comprehensive review and investigation the tax payers of Sarasota have had to pay for in the cost of only investigating Nadalini? The questions to be asked of the mayor and commissioners should include, “Why aren’t there any qualified people within the City of Sarasota’s city government to deal with employee issues? Why is there a human resource department head either appearing to be unqualified, afraid or perhaps restricted in dealing with an issue continuing to lead human resources? Who is responsible for allowing the alleged problems Nadalini is accused of go on for more than a decade without anyone noticing or seeking a remedy? Nadalini has been an employee for more that thirty years with the City of Sarasota, thirty years is a long time for no one to notice there might be a problem with her leadership skills. Nadalini was promoted to the position of City Clerk and Auditor for the City of Sarasota by the City and the human resources department, how did these same people fail to notice she perhaps wasn’t true leadership material but offered her the job anyway and signed the contract? How did those same people responsible for her yearly reviews overlook the gross allegations that are being levied against her now? Nadalini’s job reviews give her positive praise in her ability, knowledge and leadership in the job responsibilities she is held accountable for. There appeared to be great confidence in Nadalini when additional job responsibilities were given her to oversee the IT department. Why would she be given additional responsibilities if there were any doubt over her abilities to manage multiple tasks and oversee a large staff? The Citizens of Sarasota have footed the bill to get answers to these questions. Can the only question that wasn’t asked and paid for from the high priced investigation be why does there seem to be a gross lacking of leadership among the City of Sarasota Commissioners and the human resource department and additional question to be asked, “Who is minding the ship”? How could a problem truly last for over a decade and go unnoticed or unaddressed in such a high profile department? Is there an underlying issue bringing the allegations to the surface? The current mayor gave high praises for Nadalini and spoke of an employee (who is no longer working for the city) who wrote a letter to the mayor telling her of his respect and appreciation for his time working with Nadalini and in the next sentence the mayor said an outside investigation should be done and paid for. Huh? Perhaps the bigger questions to be asked are, “How competent are all the other department heads? Are there problems in other departments that employees have that are not being addressed? How competent is the Human Resource department? There is no secret the City of Sarasota has a long history of racial injustice and prejudice in running of government, making decisions that are not favorable for the African-American community and diversity on its’ staff . How can we be sure that the investigation of Nadalini doesn’t fall into racial bias? Without a full review of all departments heads how one can be sure? How does one justify firing one person when there seems to be many problems inter-related in all departments, starting at the head? What’s the solution the City Commissioners seem to have chosen, fire one person and ignore the problems in many departments? Pamela Nadalini should not be the scapegoat for the City of Sarasota and it’s seemingly lack of staff trainings, cooperation and effective communication between departments and department heads and the Commissioners. When does a full review and accountability of all departments come into view, how much will it cost? Or is firing Nadalini enough to cover up the problems in City Hall?
It’s my understanding there have been numerous complaints to HR, but charter officials aren’t governed by HR which is why an outside independent third party was hired. Don’t call something a witch-hunt when you’re on the outside looking in; you have no idea what it’s like on the inside. The commissioners don’t want to admit what the report shows because doing so would mean they’d have to admit that they ignored prior complaints of the same issues. All of the current & former employees were encouraged to participate in interviews & gave honest accounts of what really goes on and to disregard them disrespects all of them as if to say they don’t matter. If the majority of the employees independently make similar statements they can’t all be wrong! There are reasons why her department has the highest employee turnover rate than any other department and why bets are made by other departments on how long a new employee will last. There are people in other departments including HR and the commissioners that know what really goes on, but some don’t speak up & choose to keep their head in the sand rather than admit that there is a problem. If this was the corporate world rather than government, where people are paid off to make decisions to further their own political interests, she’d have been fired or reprimanded the first time a complaint was made. No one should have to work for someone who “leads” by intimidation and much of it has been swept under the carpet because those who can do something about it turn a blind eye and those who endure it and file a lawsuit are paid off and made to sign agreements to keep quiet. Also, your information is not up to date—she does not currently oversee the IT department—that responsibility was taken away from her awhile back! Being held accountable for wrongdoing does not make someone a “scapegoat”—there is no evidence of any of these issues in any other department. In addition, the issues and the investigation have no racial bias so don’t try making it a racial issue. The only racial issue is the two African-American commissioners, one of whom claimed to employees that they were going to fix what was wrong, and then voted against putting her on leave despite all of the evidence in the report.