Opinion: City of Beacon Should Announce All Terminations, Resignations, Retirements and Publish Current Employee Names and Photos
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The City of Beacon only publicly announces when a person is hired or promoted in the City of Beacon because it requires a formal vote and Resolution from the City Council. From time to time, a high-profile retirement or resignation is announced publicly. For example, if a department head, like a Building Inspector, resigns, that is usually announced because it is a department head position.
A resignation or termination for Motor Equipment Operator for the Highway Department, for instance, is not generally announced. Nor are resignation letters read publicly, if an employee writes one with the hopes of being heard to better the employment situation as a whole. As Ed McNair did when he resigned from his position in the Highway Department before James Cottrell was hired to fill the open position.
After writing articles about employment issues and employment positions in the City of Beacon, it is the opinion of this blog that the City of Beacon should publish the names and photos of all employees of the City of Beacon.
The City should continue on its promise of not only publishing all current Police Officers positions, as Mayor Lee Kyriacou vowed to do during the Black Lives Matter Movement in 2020 and did start one, updated it in January 2022, and updated again in 2024. There may be other updates, but those would be buried in Google, as there is no direct link to the current staff of Police from the Police Department page, or any department page, including Highway, Water and Sewers, Wastewater, Transfer Station (aka “The Dump”), Fire, etc. The Parks and Recreation Department has the most names who are not department heads published on their page of current employees.
For all of the praise that civil service employees of the City of Beacon receive, it would be helpful knowing who they are. This is also important for accountability.
Terminations and Resignations Generally Not Released
Also not shared with citizens of the City of Beacon who pay their salaries are when these employees are no longer working for the City of Beacon. Aside from select individuals who are praised at their retirements (not all employees are offered public farewells), the people of the City of Beacon, are not told when a person has been terminated, has resigned, or has retired.
For each new hire, the City Council is presented with the proposed candidate by the department head, who will describe the qualifications of the potential employee. The City Council then must take a vote on hiring that person. The Resolution for that person’s hire is published on the City’s website in the “Agenda Packet” that is published with each City Council Meeting.
The only way the people of the City of Beacon would know that a new employee had quit 3 weeks after being hired, for example, would be by word of mouth.
Unpaid Administrative Leave Also Not Announced - Employee Discipline Dollars Required For Budget
Also not published is when an employee is placed on Administrative Leave - Paid or Unpaid. For example, when Reuben Simmons was placed on Unpaid Leave in January 2021, just days after City Administrator Chris White’s first days on the job after replacing Anthony Ruggiero who resigned his position in Beacon to work for the Department of Behavioral and Community Health of Dutchess County, the people of Beacon did not know that in an official release from the City of Beacon.
Beacon’s first Human Resources (HR) Director, Gina Basile, resigned after 1.5 years on the job in January 2022. During one of her presentations after meeting with city employees, she stated: “I have heard employee concerns about discrimination, inequality, and growing tensions,” Gina stated in a printed presentation. “We need to address these issues head-on, and policies and procedures are only the beginning. We need a long-term plan on how to address these issues.”
Employment Issues Are Discovered During Arbitration Hearings
Also not disclosed was the amount of tax dollars spent on trying to terminate Reuben during that time, for example. Only people who were following the story very closely could surmise that the City Council was being briefed on Reuben’s various Arbitration Hearings during the City Council’s private “Executive Sessions” after the public City Council Meeting ended.
City Administrator Chris tried terminating Reuben since Chris entered his job in Beacon. However, Reuben had elected to go to Arbitration, which means that he contested the reasons he was being fired. During that time, City Administrator Chris requested and was authorized the release of funds. This was written about here at ALBB: “Over $111,000 Unplanned City of Beacon Dollars Spent On "Employee Discipline" Matter(s) - What's Going On?”
Specifically: “During the 12/13/2021 Monday Night Workshop Meeting, the City Administrator Chris White put forth to the City Council an approval to move $45,900 more dollars from an unrelated area of the budget - a real estate area of the budget - into a legal section of the budget to cover ‘associated employee discipline beyond the budget to date.’”
ALBB also reported during that time: “The second noted proposed transfer tonight of $45,900 to ‘Employee Discipline’ is being transferred from ‘In REM Sale of Property.’”
Therefore, ALBB sees it valuable and necessary to publish the hires, fires, resignations and retirements of each employee in a published log that does not disappear and does not discriminate against length of time - no matter how short or long a person worked for the City of Beacon. Each employee should have their own timelines since their time of interning, to official hiring, subsequent promotions, and exits.
Additionally, this publication asked if the City of Beacon conducts Exit Interviews with exiting employees, and if those interviews are made public.
