East Rochester's Reign of Error

Quite a response in comments to our story on the new Mayor's attempted ouster of long-standing employees in East Rochester.

We considered it worthy of mention, and the wrong thing for the new Mayor to do, for several reasons.

First, despite what one anonymous commenter to our last post states, Hizzoner Baby Doc demanded the resignation of three civil service employees, among the others whose resignations he also demanded. He did this without consulting the Village Attorney. Since the story came out we've talked to two different lawyers who do labor law, including civil service. Both told us that merely demanding the resignations -- without doing anything more -- violates the state Civil Service law, and subjects East Rochester to potential lawsuits.

Second, it turns out that all of the employees hold positions that can only be filled by a process requiring (1) appointment by the Mayor and (2) approval by the Village Board. The Mayor can fire certain employees on his own (although not many of those on his purge list, because they serve for set terms, which are legally protected). But he can't hire anyone to replace any of them unless the Board of Trustees votes to approve. In other words, the Mayor acting by himself can create chaos, but not progress.

For all we know, dumping all of these people may be exactly the right thing to do.

Our point in criticizing the way the new Mayor has gone about it is that he can't accomplish his goal this way. Some of these people remain until the end of fixed terms that have a year or more to go. So if the goal is to "clean house," Baby Doc's blowing it totally by not cooperating with the majority-Republican Village Board. He should have approached them with what he wanted to do and worked out something they'd approve.

If it's in fact true that, as Koon told the press, the people of East Rochester voted for change and deserve to get it, then by approaching this matter as he has, Koon's guaranteeing that they won't get the change they voted for.

The fault lies with whoever is advising a new Mayor who still can't find the men's room in Village Hall. Whoever advised Hizzoner should have explained the Mayor's inability under law to act unilaterally to replace any of these employees, and should have helped him steer clear of the colossal embarrassment of treading on rights of civil service employees. If the Mayor's not willing to consult his own Village attorney, he at least should consult some trusted legal adviser, to avoid embarrassing himself. If, on the other hand, he did consult counsel, then the advice he received has a distinct odor about it -- an odor of comic incompetence.