City manager cancels meeting on values

After first insisting that all directors and assistant directors attend a Monday morning meeting with City Manager Marc Ott on city values, Chief of Staff Ray Baray sent out a memo Friday night to inform city staff that the meeting had been canceled. Some people didn’t see the memo, but noticed Monday morning that their Outlook schedules had been changed to reflect the cancellation. According to Baray’s most recent memo, Monday’s meeting was canceled because of “constraints” in Ott’s schedule. That may be the case, or it may be that management decided not to rub more salt into the wounds of female staff members as well as the women on City Council. Ten of the 11 Council members last week attended a press conference to denounce speakers at a training devised to teach staff how to deal with female officials, who were described as not interested in financial matters and less likely than their male counterparts to read agenda material. Assistant City Manager Anthony Snipes, who arranged the training, remains on administrative leave while Ott ponders his fate. Baray wrote on Friday, “As the Manager has stated in his recent communications, he looks forward to having a positive discussion very soon about our PRIDE values.” PRIDE is an acronym for the values of public service, responsibility, innovation, diversity and ethics.