The El Paso Times has known about the firing of the deputy city manager that we read about in Bridge to nowhere since at least June 21 of this year.
The Times wrote:
Deputy City Manager Jane Shang was put on paid administrative leave and is working from home on some assignments, according to a city document obtained by the El Paso Times.
Linda Bell Thomas, the city’s Human Resources director, said she could not comment specifically on why Shang was put on leave because it was a personnel matter.
Shang, who was appointed deputy city manager in April 2008, will remain on administrative leave through Dec. 31, Thomas said. Shang had been publicly accused by some council members of not responding to their requests and not working to push through projects they had requested.
Deniability
The Times chose to tell us about the situation as part of an article about our new city manager coming to work.
One would think that the situation deserves it’s own story. Writing what they did in the middle of another article gives the Times the ability to say with a straight face that they covered the story.
Really?
Here we have a city employee one rank below city manager who got in a dustup with city council and in the process contradicted what the former city manager said before council. She has been sent home but is still being paid. In fact she will stay home and get paid through December 31 of this year, more than six months. After that she will stay on the city payroll until April 15, 2015 while using her accumulated vacation and sick time. At that point she will cease to be employed by the city.
We might rightly suspect that she is being kept on the payroll to let her earn more tenure in the city’s pension system. Then again that might not be the reason.
Is she being paid to keep quiet? Is she getting preferential treatment because of who she knows? Is the city afraid of what she might say?
Either way this is certainly not the way taxpayer money should be spent. The city has agreed to firing her in such a way that she will be paid out of the city pension fund for the rest of her life. That’s after she has been fired. Why?
Someone at the Times thought enough of the issue to obtain documentation. Then the story appears buried inside another article. Has management at the Times stepped in and thwarted the reporter?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
The question now really is why this happened and what if anything Council or the new City Manager will do about it. Especially as they face budget problems that will require cutting services or increasing taxes – while paying Ms. Shang here near-$175,000 yearly salary. All this was worked out the day before Joyce Wilson left her job. There is something very rotten here.
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Helen brings up one of the most intriguing and telling facts: the Shang deal was executed the day before Joyce Wilson left her job, which means that Wilson in all likelihood orchestrated this agreement. Since Wilson brought her in, perhaps this was Wilson’s way of enabling Shang to leave with her while still benefiting financially. I’m beginning to think that Shang and Wilson together engineered Shang’s separation. Maybe Shang’s dissension and lack of responsiveness to council requests were simply part of a script.
P.S. – How much did the Joyce Wilson good-bye gala event at the Plaza Theater cost taxpayers?
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Shang and Wilson were excellent in the art of covering things up. When a City employee brought an issue to the attention of superiors about the inappropriate use of federal funds at Sun Metro LIFT, well, they prepared a budget eliminating the employee’s position. When First Transit was non-compliant with their original contract and spent three years worth of budgeted funding during the first year of the contract, no one cared about the misappropriation of tax money. Then when the City needed to re-bid the contract they tailored the specifications to minimize responses from qualified bidders and keep First Transit on board to keep thing under wrap. And I always wondered, Sun Metro and the City sold the ticket booth and property at the Plaza for about $500,000. to Paul Foster so he could expand the Mills building. That property and building were paid for with federal funds, did the City give the money made from the sale back to the taxpayers?
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Very interesting. I missed the sale of the Plaza property to Foster. I think we also turned over some prime on-street parking spaces to him to be used exclusively by his restaurant in the Mills Building. That’s ironic given that he also owns parking lots.
What Paul wants, Paul gets. Some might call it robbing Peter to pay Paul.
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The city, unfortunately, has done this before. District Representative Emma Acosta, a former department head for the city, is an example. Few know the details because as usual it was discussed only in executive session. Acosta had a disagreement with the city, went on administrative leave, then sued to be left on the payroll a specified time that was favorable to her pension. The point is that this happens occasionally with the city, if not frequently. It would be nice if the Times covered it, but information is limited because personnel issues are always confidential. We, the taxpayers must pay for these deals but are not allowed to know the details. That really stinks. Personally, I think personnel records for municipalities and counties should be made public when deals like this are made.
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I understand that Acosta gets $90 a year for life because she threatened suit when she was fired. What a joke!
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Shang is the person who got CC to spend $5MM for trolley prep only to discover that TXDoT wasn’t going to come through with the extra $90MM. She apparently did not secure an agreement from TXDoT before committing city funds. To me, a $5MM blooper is a pink slip. It seems that the city for once is holding a DCM accountable. Too bad the same standard isn’t applied to the stadium and bond fumbles.
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Jerry, would that be the $97 million trolley system that the Texas Transportation Commission voted to approve today?
Sometimes I can’t figure out if posters on this site are tuly as stupid as they appear, or if this is some sort of bizarre false flag exercise.
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SMH:
This happened a few months back when TXDot backed out of the project, so the city had no binding agreement from TxDot when it spent the money . Is that the way we do business in city hall – on a handshake? I made a point of it then when it was reported in The Inc. Now that TxDot is saying they will fund it, it’s probably time to ask if we can afford it, a question that doesn’t seem to bother anyone at the city, CC included.
But at the time, Ms. Shang was out there on the “Oh shit” limb. This whole issue is all over the blogs now which just goes to show you that there is still nothing to do in this town, even with AAA. I told you so:)
Best – Jerry
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Good for you, SMH! I get awfully tired of the false accusations and statements made by some of these posts.
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To me the question is not whether she screwed up or not but that she is allowed to “work from home,” and eventually use sick and vacation time to pump up her pension. Does her contract allow her to screw up (or not), then get paid time for a year? If so, it’s time to look at whatever contact clause allows this. Will the new city manager get to hire another deputy? So we’ll be paying for two deputy CMs but one is “working from home.”
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good point balmorhea. sounds like this was either wilson pulling a wardy acosta thing for her friend who screwed up or wilson pulling a wardy acosta thing because her friend who screwed up might talk if this wasnt done. either way davidk has tried to take the focus off of this screw up(wilson’s, shang, or the rep) and trying to put the focus on martin, lawsuit, and the picture of the document.
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Nice pink slip, especially if she did not have an employment agreement that stated she would receive months of compensation in the event of termination. This is a case of being rewarded nicely for a “blooper”. I don’t consider that accountability.
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If you read the newspaper you are ill informed and
if you do NOT you are ill informed…something like that.
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wow, looks like david and martin are in a pissing match over this shang thang. however, someone posted this link to the diario’s article and martin’s picture of the real document is exactly what the diario has on its website. http://diario.mx/El_Paso/2014-06-23_c44ef472/aunque-esta-suspendida-cobra-$7200-quincenales/
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Story is that Shang and Wilson got crosswise resulting in Wilson “firing” Shang. But due to her contract, Shang can remain employed — or at least paid — til fall. Also heard that some council members encouraged Wilson to do this. Unfortunate because in my opinion, Shang was competent, smart and a good person to have at the city.
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$97 million for a few trolley cars to circle downtown and UTEP makes the ballpark’s $64 mil price tag look like a bargain. Just chalk this up as another use of tax dollars for the benefit of downtown developers who have close ties to Perry and Houghton. We tend to be less concerned when it involves state or federal tax dollars, rather than local property tax dollars.
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GOOD POINTS, but i will repeat what i said earlier post a while back. ted houghton, do you have any common sense ? why dont you finish the second phase of the transmountain project by doing the bypass to anthony gap. that would get nearly all the tractor trailers just passing through off 1-10. you havent even mentioned it. i guess the right people dont own the land around that project , huh ? of course we have the stadium owners and the downtown property owners to please with this trolley crap first. forget common sense and safety.
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Shang is not accountable to City Council or the Mayor for that fact. Shang is accountable to the CM only and no one else.
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Yes. Only the city manager could fire her.
Brutus
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An article by David Crowder in the latest El Paso Inc. gives this information.
1) Ms. Shang and Ms. Wilson were at odds regarding their explanations to Council regarding funding of the Wayfinding Project downtown.
2) Ms. Shang went on a scheduled vacation after her April 22 discussion on that subject with Council
3) Upon returning, Ms. Shang was surprised to find Ms. Wilson had placed her on paid leave. Ms. Wilson left soon after that.
4) And, according to Rep. Robinson, before Ms. Wilson left she added a clause to Ms. Shang’s contract stating that if fired she would receive 6 months pay. This, Rep. Robinson, says is within the purview of the city manager and that Council can do nothing about it.
So the six months paid leave covers June 1 – Dec 31. Then, so Ms. Shang can be vested in the City pension fund, Ms. Wilson declared she could take vacation leave from Jan 1 through April 14, 2015.
So it seems the City Manager can fire people in her/his office if they disagree with her/him. The CM can change a personnel contract of someone in her/his office without approval of Council.
This stinks on so many levels.
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Well now that Shang is somewhat gone, let’s see what we can do about bringing back the Sun Metro logo with a depiction of the “sun” and not a “green ball.” Shang signed off on a nearly $50 thousand dollar “survey” that determined the public was in fear of Sun Metro and rebranding would change the system’s image. Shang was required to get some instructions on procurement procedures after that little expenditure. Did she get to keep her boyfriend “perez?”
Will council review Shang’s amended contract to see if it passes all legal tests? Wasn’t council Wilson’s boss and should approval for the contract modification received council approval and vote?
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