Rowswell sticks to his guns, blames staff for leaks

Blaming City staff for recent information leaks to SooToday.com and other news media, Mayor John Rowswell has released a lengthy explanation for his opposition to the hiring of Jerry Dolcetti as commissioner of engineering and planning.

"You are not being served by this appointment, either financially or from a matter of public safety," the mayor says in a letter to the editor released to SooToday.com and City councillors at 10:44 p.m. Sunday.

The mayor cites retiring commissioner Mel Brechin as saying that 80 percent of his time on the job was spent in the practice of professional engineering.

But last-minute changes in the job description were used to ensure that Dolcetti, a non-engineer, got the job.

"These manipulations of the job description, reflects poorly on the integrity of City Hall," the mayor says.

"Another way of viewing it could be the hiring of a specialist with critical technical experience. After you hire him, you find he does not have the experience you thought but you relax your standards to accommodate him. This is what happened."

Background articles

Jerry Dolcetti gets a promotion Mayor accuses City of hiring irregularities City cautioned about legality of Dolcetti hiring (Leaked memo) Why Rowswell opposed Dolcetti hiring Final word from engineers: Dolcetti hiring was okay

The following is the full text of the mayor's letter:

********************** May 16, 2004 - Letter to the Editor I felt I should comment on the recent happenings at city hall over the promotion of Jerry Dolcetti, a planner to the Commissioner of Engineering and Planning.

Essentially, this person is responsible for all engineering and planning matters for the City of Sault Ste. Marie including all civil engineering work.

This work results in projects of 6 to 10 million dollars in road and sewer work annually, as well as 15 million dollars for the new truck route and 60 million dollars of sewage treatment plant works that are presently underway. This position until March, 2004 was required to be a professional engineer and according to Mel Brechin the retiring commissioner, the practice of professional engineering was 80% of his time. I have been recently openly criticized by our CAO Joe Fratesi for not explaining my concerns about this matter at open council on Monday, May 10, 2004.

Yet, he nor council wished to ask any questions at this meeting either.

I was very disappointed to see internal documents leaked to the press. I must tell the community that matters discussed in caucus should remain in caucus.

I had and still have serious concerns regarding irregularities in this hiring process.

As Mayor and CEO, the Municipal Act makes me responsible to report these irregularities to council but council must develop administrative practices or policies.

When does one cross the line and talk about confidential caucus matters in public?

In response to the leaked documents and the CAO's releases to the media, I feel I can now talk more openly about my concerns. On Wednesday morning, May 12, 2004, I could not bring myself to sign the by-law 2004-92 as the Professional Engineers Act is very clear about corporations found guilty of an offense if non-engineers are doing work within the practice of professional engineering work at the direction of their employer.

Fines up to $50,000 dollars can be levied against myself and each councilor and senior officers of the Corporation of the City of Sault Ste. Marie.

I have asked for independent legal advice in this matter before I sign the by-law.

On Wednesday morning, I advised the clerk of my concerns and that I would not sign it. The clerk talked to our Lorie Bottos in our legal department.

In a little over 24 hours, the Sault Star was calling to ask why I had not signed the by-law yet.

Who leaked this information? It was not a councilor as I had not talked to anyone yet and the clerk and legal assure me it was not them.

But some staff member leaked it. Further, it wasn’t long thereafter that my Friday, May 7, 2004 confidential memo to council explaining my concerns of passing the bylaw was leaked to Sootoday.

As much as one tries to balance caucus confidentially, and address only what the press knows for sure, our CAO later this day was releasing internal memos to the media, stating everything was just fine especially with the Professional Engineers of Ontario as they had, after the fact, now wordsmithed the job description to suit Jerry Dolcetti.

The job needs have not changed and according to the former commissioner it is 80% professional engineering work.

We already have a Planning Director, Don McConnell to deal with planning issues.

Haven’t we just introduced a high priced administrator?

Our CAO tells us this parallels Sudbury's General Manager of Public Works, however this person heads a department that looks after engineering, pubic works, garbage disposal, water and sewage treatment.

The last two items in Sault Ste. Marie are handled by our PUC.

Public works or Board of Works in our case handles garbage disposal as well and is headed by a professional engineer, Commissioner of Public Works and Transportation, Pat McAuley.

In Sudbury, the Director of Engineering who works for the General Manager of Public Works is a professional engineer and deals with engineering matters for a region twice our size. So now we have an administrator that can't do 80% of the job function of the former Commissioner and council must rely on the Director of Engineering Design and Buildings and Chief Building Official, Maurice Kukoraitis for all professional engineering advice.

Remember, we now have more engineering projects than we have ever had in progress right now.

We are probably now short personnel by adding just another administrator. On March 22, 2004, our CAO put forward to council and received general approval for a job posting to replace Mr. Brechin.

We were promised job reductions in the non-union ranks.

However, with this new appointment, positions will need to be added not reduced.

On Wednesday, April 21, 2004, the CAO at my request told me that four candidates had put their name forward and he indicated his preference but final selection had not been made.

I would have assumed that in my caucus package of Thursday, April 22, 2004, all the details would be there.

However, his recommendation was not supplied in our council package and it was not until the April 26, 2004 caucus session, that his recommendation was presented to council without a job description.

To read the conclusion of this letter, please click here