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Los Angeles County, CA June 8, 2010 Election
Measure CS
Withdrawal of Specified Positions from Civil Service
City of Inglewood

Amended Ordinance - 2/3 Approval Required

Fail: 3,114 / 48.93% Yes votes ...... 3,250 / 51.07% No votes

See Also: Index of all Measures

Results as of Jul 2 1:59pm, 100.00% of Precincts Reporting (62/62)
Information shown below: Impartial Analysis | Arguments |

Shall Section 2 of Ordinance No. 657, of the City of Inglewood be amended to withdraw the positions of Senior Administrative Analyst to the Mayor, Executive Assistant to the Mayor and Assistant to City Council from the Civil Service System, thereby making the positions unclassified?

Impartial Analysis from Cal P. Saunders,
City Attorney, City of Inglewood
Measure CS, if approved by a two third's majority vote, would authorize an amendment to Ordinance 657 which created the Civil Service System in the City of Inglewood.

The proposed amendment would include the withdrawal of certain position from the Civil Service System and make the following positions unclassified:

  • Senior Administrative Analyst to the Mayor;
  • Executive Assistant to the Mayor;
  • Assistant to City Council.

The effect of making a position unclassified is that the required steps to fill a classified position in the Civil Service System would not longer be applicable to an unclassified position. In addition, an employee placed in one of the unclassified positions would not gain permanent civil service status. The person occupying an unclassified position would only serve at the will of the person appointing them to the position.

For example, if Councilman X was in office, a person would be appointed to fill one of the unclassified positions of Assistant to City Council. If Councilman X were to leave office, his successor Councilman Y would have the ability to have a different person serve in the unclassified position of Assistant to City Council.

If the voters approve the ballot measure by a two thirds vote and the positions identified above become unclassified positions, additional language will be added to the Ordinance 657 that would protect the civil service status of any permanent civil service employee who now occupies one of the above identified positions.

  Official Information

City of Inglewood
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Arguments For Measure CS Arguments Against Measure CS
Please Vote YES on Measure CS and encourage your neighbors to do the same.

This amendment to our Civil Service Ordinance permits the City to better control its long-term expenses.

This Ballot Measure affects just six employees.

Members of the City Council (mayor and four councilmembers) hire their own staff (two full-time positions for the mayor and one part-time position for each councilmember). As it is now, when the electeds leave office, their staff does not leave with them, but must be absorbed into the personnel system of the City.

This means that the individuals have "bumping" rights over other employees, are entitled to long-term retirement benefits, etc. This is an unfair and costly policy.

Most cities consider City Council staff as "exempt" (or non-classified) employees. This means that the employee does not get civil service protections and must move on when his/her "boss" moves on. Another expression for these employees is "at will."

This amendment to our Civil Service Ordinance is long overdue.

Vote YES on Measure CS on Tuesday, June 8th

JUDY DUNLAP
Council Member, District 2

RALPH FRANKLIN
Council Member, District 4

DANNY TABOR
Council Member, District 1

ELOY MORALES, JR.
Council Member, District 3

This is a giant step backward and plain wrong! When the city is trying to "right-size" and become "results oriented" along comes an initiative that rewards cronies and flies in the face of good government.

Prior to 2003, there were six administrative assistants, plus three front office staff, inclusive of the two executive assistants assigned to city administration.

Since then, the experiment of part-time Council assistants has led to at least four additional full time positions. Part-time employees can be let go ("fired") under the current civil service rules. Why remove them from these provisions now, when there have been four assistants that have been let go in a span of six years as it is? Why does the City Council need more discretion when they do not act responsibly now? Are they not themselves full time executives?

And why single out the Executive Assistant to the Mayor and not the Executive Assistant to the City Administrator?

Removing them from Civil Service or any public employee for that matter is an alarming trend as there would be no separation from the politics.

We should aim to be better than business as usual.

This will be a terrible cross for all of us to bear: the perception of cronyism, nepotism and the politics of self-serving populists will become overt. This is a town where less than 15% of the eligible voters cast ballots of a population of less than 125,000. We are not that big.

There should be a bright line between the professionals who run the city and self-indulgent politics.

Vote NO and bring "good government" and sensibility back to the City as this is the foundation on which the city originated, reflected over the years in the Charter, its numerous revisions and the Municipal Code.

Respectively Submitted by:

ROBERT L. BROWN
Concerned Resident

THELMA D. WILLIAMS
Concerned Resident


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Created: August 20, 2010 21:38 PDT
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