Porkies on pork

As at least one commenter has already noted under the previous post, the story in today's Chron about the departure of Rosemary Hovey from Council after 21 years of loyal service highlights the fact that promises were made - including by Nicki "I don't read unsigned emails" Higgie in the Chron as recently as May 30 - regarding a community development position being established in the Luftwaffe sorry, the Sally Patrick wing of the Council.

A promise that was subsequently broken. "I did not expect to be restructured out completely," Mrs Hovey is quoted as saying. Nor, we suspect, did she expect over two decades of loyalty to be rewarded with a "don't come Monday" notice on the first day of her holidays. But that's the way it is around Council nowadays. Any number of things - including people - are being sacrificed to find the money, not to reduce debt, but to pay for diVision's pork barrelling of projects such as the Splash Centre.

Commenters have been quick to blame Mayor Michael Laws for the way in which the layoffs were handled, especially since Mrs Hovey reveals that after she wrote to CEO David Warburton asking for written answers about her future, his response "necessitated a letter from her own lawyer". Mickey's record on industrial relations is, after all, less than perfect, having - as we've pointed out in the past - already cost the taxpayer a wallop at least once in the past. And it certainly seems like his modus operandi.

"All further correspondence was then between my lawyer and the council’s lawyers. I did not find any pleasure in this way of resolving matters," she understatedly tells the Chron. "I am disappointed with the tone of the letters I received throughout this process, especially as I felt threatened by them", ominously adding that "It would be fair to say this caused me much angst and may require some follow-up in the future".

Not so fast though, Watchers. LawsWatch has already revealed that Dr Warburton also has an equally appalling record on human resources management, especially when it comes to getting rid of people.

It was Warburton's company, Tanner Group Ltd, which announced it was closing its three paper mills at Kaitaia, Kerepehi and Tairua because it couldn't make a profit. TGL told workers on a Friday that they had until Monday to come up with a way to keep their plant open. Local MP Sue Bradford said at the time that local people were "bitter" towards the company because it had "kept its workers in the dark for some time".

That whole "four days to save your own backside" line sound familiar, Watchers? It ought to. Back in May, that's precisely what was told to Irene Pearson, who was called into Warburton’s office on a Monday and told the council was restructuring and her job was gone. As the Chron reported at the time "Dr Warburton gave her four days to suggest somewhere else in council where she might fit in. She asked what the master plan was, and was told he could not discuss it. That left her at a loss to know where she could fit in."

And then, when the workers get bolshy, the threats begin. For it was Tanner Group which, just a month before decimating the three timber towns, lost an Employment Relations Act case in which it was alleged to have "threaten[ed the] applicant with disciplinary action over [a] term of employment that had not been directly and expressly negotiated and [the] contents of which remained uncertain between parties".

Now the treatment of Mrs Hovey et al may well have Mayoral fingerprints all over it. But in this case it's just as likely to have been Dr Warburton who trained the big lawyerly guns on the first person to peek over the parapet, and blew their head off.

Mickey, Nicki, Dotty et al knew all about his record before he was hired. They knew he had no local government experience, yet according to both Dotty and the Diva, "over fifty people applied for the top job including CEOs of three other councils and the heads of two government agencies". So he was picked for a reason. Now we know what it was. He's a codependent:

Codependent personalities evolve from attempts to keep some type of order in a hurtful relationship. The term codependency refers to a relationship where one or both parties enable the other to act in certain maladaptive ways. Many times, the act of enabling satisfies a need for the codependent person because his or her actions foster a dependency from the other person or persons in the relationship.

Codependency is reinforced by a person's need to be needed. The enabler thinks irrationally by believing he can maintain healthy relationships through manipulation and control. He believes he can do this by avoiding conflict and fostering dependency. Is it rational for someone to think that he can maintain a healthy relationship when he does not address problems and he lies to protect others from their responsibilities?

Still, we're sure Dr Warbond (© Bearhunter, 2006) has "shared with the full council" the latest decision to not have a community development staffer after all, as promised in the e-coli of 15 May:

Unsurprisingly, Dr Warburton is restructuring the current council to make it more efficient and effective. He has shared his restructuring plan with the full council, and those plans have been formally approved.

Perhaps he'll also "share with the full council" (in open meeting, of course - it's our money he's spending, after all) just how much that highly paid Wellington employment lawyer is hoovering up to deal with all this.

So... Nicki? Dotty? Anyone? Prepared to step up and take responsibility for this? Or content to let the not-so-good doctor continue to "not address problems and protect others from their responsibilities?"

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