Aaaaaah. City employees in Coral Gables have been breathing easier for almost two weeks now that the paranoid and 
problematic City Manager Pat Salerno, who resigned abruptly last month, is gone.
At least physically, though some fear he is still in the background.
For most employees — some of whom joked (read: feared) that the workaholic who worked late into the night and on weekends would have to be carried out in a box — it’s as if a cloud has been lifted. For some employees and business owners, it’s as if an ugly stain on the City Beautiful has been removed.
Salerno didn’t give any reason for his surprise announcement in the middle of a commission meeting earlier this month. But as far as most people are concerned, he didn’t have to. They’d take whatever.
We all know it is because he was caught lying by Commissioner Vince Lago when he knowingly presented false information about accident frequency on a stretch of Ponce de Leon where driver visibility has become an issue.
Despite the fact that this act of insubordination, as Lago calls it, is also a violation of the Citizens Bill of Rights — which prohibits government employees from knowingly provide false or incomplete information to the public — Salerno gets to leave with a $210,000 severance and an inflated retirement benefit he conveniently arranged about five months ago.
In total, it’s almost $300,000. For what, exactly, was he paid?
Well, to kill the Granada Golf Course, for one. Sources close to City Hall told Ladra that Salerno wanted to cover up the toxic poisoning of the greens by the city’s superintendent, a hire he made with much promise, who was suspended after two employees came forward to blow the whistle on him. One of those, Community Services Director Jessica Keller — who Salerno brought to the city from would Baltimore where she was head of transportation planning and transit administration — suffered retaliation, some employees told me. Several said she had been written out of the budget, but Keller, who miraculously hangs on at the city, declined to comment.
He was paid for lies. Because who knows what other incomplete or misleading information the former manager gave commissioners? This is a man who would choose to quit a $190K a year job that he was obviously obsessed with rather than answer to his bosses about the report he redacted on the accidents on Ponce de Leon Boulevard — a public safety issue where the city may have some level of liability he knew about.. What else has he covered up? I mean, besides the crime wave that has resulted from his handling of the command staff, decimating of morale and refusal to fill the 21 vacant positions. There is talk about auditing some of the more important presentations that he has made to the commission.
He was paid to trash and scare employees and control everything, to forbid department directors from speaking directly with commissioners, to keep all the information himself and share and delegate nothing, so that he would be the only one who knew everything about anything. His idea of job security? Poor Interim City Manager Carmen Olazabal even admitted in public that Salerno pretty much kept her in the dark.
How secretive (read: paranoid) was he? He had two phones and often spoke from the sidewalk outside of City Hall. He did not let the anyone clean his office. He took his trash home himself and, some say, burned it.
Sources say that several stacks of documents disappeared from his office when he left. That would be illegal, and the city clerk has not returned Ladra’s call to find out if any city records are missing, but it’s not out of the question. Ladra knows first hand that the manager was not a fan of public records laws.
Salerno was also paid for his political favor, after allegedly helping Mayor Jim “The Cuban Savior” Cason in his election last year. Many of Ladra’s sources tell me that Cason is an empty suit, after all, as former Commissioner Ralph Cabrera portrayed him in a negative campaign mailer he got way too much slack for last year. Ladra has a feeling we will all be able to tell now that Salerno is not there to prop Cason up.
The Miami-Dade Commission on Ethics has looked into — investigated would be too strong a word — several complaints about Salerno from the same source, attorney Joseph Rosenbaum, who says he represents and anonymous client (read: either Cabrera or the police union). Among the complaints: that Salerno used his office and the E-Newsletter to promote the mayor and that he ordered parking tickets to be suspended during the election. The close-out memos from the Ethics commission all state that after employee interviews — not sworn statements, of course — they came to the conclusion that no laws or ethics rules were violated.
But Salerno’s penchant for politicking was rumored for years, even back in the Broward city of Sunrise, where he was manager for 18 years. Several employees at City Hall told Ladra, quite easily and without much prying, that it was pretty obvious Public Information Officer Belkys Perez was working on Cason’s campaign during city hours. One City Hall insider said she had “secret projects” with the manager and met on a Saturday during the campaign to discuss the revamping of E-News with the advice of a political consultant.
Perez, who was one of the pet employees who got parting raises on Salerno’s last day, circumvented her director to post Salerno’s self-congratulatory, 16-page goodbye on E-News, in which he basically took credit for anything good that has happened in the city, even things that he was not responsible for. The message was removed at the request of one or more commissioners within hours. According to an email from the freelance website designer, Perez sent an email at 8:55 p.m. on Salerno’s last Friday asking for the post to be removed. She followed up with a text message at 9:19 p.m.
City Commissioners Lago and Keon expressed a little dismay about the raises given to only Salerno’s faves while others who were also overdue — and in some cases more overdue — continued to be ignored.
The commission voted to freeze the raises at the meeting last week. And Lago gave Jaramillo-Velez, the HR director, a good scolding (more on that later).
Perez’s 2.5% pay raise raised many eyebrows, particularly because she was given a merit increase less than six months ago. Her direct supervisor, Maria Higgins Fallon, did not know about the evaluation and did not participate in her staff member’s performance review, according to a chain of emails that are public records.
“I’m reading in a media report that a memer of my staff has received a 2.5% merit increase due to a recent evaluation done by the outgoing city manager,” Higgins-Fallon wrong in a Saturday morning email to Olazabal and the HR director, reminding them that Perez had already been “reclassified” in January and asking for clarification.
“This upgrade in position, which was not requested or approved by me, resulted in a 5% salary increase,” she wrote, which means Perez has gotten a 7.5% increase in the last four months. “According to the reclassified job description, this position still reports to me. Please be advised that I have not been included in any of the above documents.”
Ladra doesn’t expect much clarification. Olazabal, who got a 4% increase before her boss “left,” is considered by many to be just a stand-in who will allow Salerno to keep control from the comfort of the Anderson Road home she allegedly helped him get cheaper. And Jaramillo-Velez, who is said to be applying for the position (much to employees’ dismay), was reportedly his henchwoman.
But the pets are few and far between. Salerno had a far bigger reputation for pushing employees away — making them flee in terror, might be more accurate — and oversaw, in five years, the largest loss of seasoned employees the Gables has seen in its recent history. Not just through the massive lay offs and elimination of positions, but also because those who could jump ship, did.
Those who didn’t, were shipped off by him or went into self-imposed exile. Former Assistant City Manager Dona Spain is now the city’s historic preservation officer. Commission Aide Danette Perez reported to the city manager until she could take it no more and said she would quit if she wasn’t transferred to the purview of the commission or the clerk. Longtime secretary Pilar Weisse — who had served two prior city managers — works in the parking department. Parking! That’s the equivalent of municipal Siberia!
And those who couldn’t escape, suffered in silence. Over and over again, employees told Ladra that Salerno was a vengeful boss who made life miserable for anyone who dared to have their own brain.
“He was great at chasing away talent,” said former Public Services Director Dan Keys, no doubt one of those workers who fled.
Ladra ran into Keys and about a dozen current and former employees at a “Very Good Friday” party at John Martin’s on Salerno’s last day earlier this mont. To say the mood was festive is an understatement. People felt downright liberated — but they were still reluctant to allow Ladra to quote them by name. Employees in both the Gables and Sunrise used the word “bully” repeatedly, mentioned specifically the “Stockholm syndrome,” and a longtime City Hall employee said she might need therapy. Ladra does not think she was joking.
Another 20+ year veteran, an apparently creative City Hall guy, whipped out a bobble head he had ordered months ago with a Groupon coupon for $40 and a photograph of the manager. The bobble head has the signature furrowed brow. On Salerno’s last day, the employee carried him around in a black box that symbolized a coffin.
Former City Commissioner Ralph Cabrera — a longtime Salerno critic who ought to feel vindicated — dropped by and was greeted like a hero. Cabrera had been the sole voice to question Salerno’s methods and madness for years. Then he was joined by former Commissioner Maria Anderson. The two failed to oust him in July of 2012.
Cabrera and many of his supporters blame Salerno for the commissioner’s loss in last year’s mayoral election. But while he is still stung and hurt, Cabrera refuses to gloat. All he will say is that he is certain — and Ladra bets he is quite certain — that the commission had a good reason to accept the manager’s resignation.
Anderson, on the other hand, was almost crowing when Salerno finally was forced to split.
“Congratulations to Commissioner Lago for having the courage to insist on the truth from the City Manager,” she told Ladra. “I hope he runs for Mayor in 2015, and I only wish he’d been on the Commission in July 2012 to be our third vote to oust Pat Salerno.
“Better late than never, though. Victory still tastes sweet in April 2014.”
It’s not just them. A lot of people wonder what took so long and why the city hired Salerno in the first place. He had been known for his despot style in Sunrise, where he was manager for 18 years without ever having an assistant city manager. There were rampant rumors that he was involved in kickbacks and that he used city staff and resources to campaign for his chosen elected lackeys there. And he had the same reputation for pushing employees around.
“He was a bully,” said former Sunrise Public Works Director Paul Callsen, who had a reputation for being one of teh few who didn’t tow the Salerno line and paid for it by going without evaluations or pay raises for years. He said he was surprised when the Gables hired him in 2009. “They talked to us. They knew what they were getting into.”
Salerno was even sanctioned by the International City/County Management Association — a very rare thing — when he took a job in Wichita and then never showed up, calling to say, “Nevermind!” on the day he was supposed to start. In response to the scolding, Salerno quit the professional association for city administrators. Who needs them anyway, right?
I guess he has a pattern of quitting when the going gets tough.
Some people, however, suspect that Salerno is still pulling the puppet strings with his favorite pet employees and through Olazabal and Cason. Others want to have some kind of review of the bigger projects and initiatives the city has processed in the last five years (may Ladra suggest the $420,000 budgeted for golf course improvements?), to be certain that what was presented was not heavily edited and skewed by Salerno. Wouldn’t you?
Commissioners Lago and Pat Keon have each told Ladra that they may want there to be some kind of audit of the city manager’s office.
Well, good luck with that — if you can find any documents. You might want to look in an ash pile in a back yard on Anderson Road.
Coral Gables begins anew, sans paranoid Pat Salerno added by Ladra on
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