Dear Haters:
Over the past year as mayor I have been noticing a disturbing trend towards belittling our city employees.
- When a planning department employee was disrespected in the middle of a delegation at a public council meeting, I stopped the meeting and told the delegate that his characterization of our employee was unacceptable and an apology was required. – An apology came.
- When there was questioning and commentary around our CAO brought up at a town hall meeting, I asked for the conversation to stop. – The discussion stopped.
- When a citizen rudely emailed our parking staff several months ago I replied to the citizen asking him to apologize to our staff. – An apology came.
And now, I read blog posts as of late slamming our employees. Just as I did not ignore the public council meeting, the town hall or the emails, I will not ignore the blogs either.
So let me educate you:
- Council, including the Mayor, only have one employee – The CAO. Council does not hire or fire any other employee in the city. This is left with our administration to tend to.
- All of our employees compete for the positions that they are given and are qualified to be here.
- Our employees are not beholden to politicians whether current or previous ones. They work for the corporation and they work for the citizens and businesses of our city by serving them day in and day out.
- Their direction is given to them through policies or motions voted upon by council as a whole.
Any workplace should be one free of constantly looking over your shoulder (or looking at a computer screen) from those that have nothing better to do then to spread lies and misinformation to hurt our staff.
So please, stop using them as your personal punching bag. Haters and bullies often continue their behaviour only because no one has stood up and punched back.
It’s time to stand up. It’s time to punch back.
Thank you,
Cam Guthrie
Mayor – City of Guelph
P.S For those that have read this and want to make one of our employees day, why don’t you email mayor@guelph.ca and tell me how they’ve made your life better, helped you out or have done an outstanding job. I’ll be sure to share it with them!
P.S.S For those that might feel an apology is warranted for how you’ve treated our employees, it’s the same email address – mayor@guelph.ca