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Morro Bay Recreation and Parks Director ousted

April 27, 2015

morro bay plantAfter more than 26 years with the City of Morro Bay, Recreation and Parks Director Joe Woods was dismissed from his position on Friday.

Woods was an at-will employee. Under the terms of his contract, the city will pay him five months’ severance pay.

On Friday, the city paid Woods about $24,400 in accrued leave and $49,325 in severance.

City Manager Dave Buckingham will manage the Recreation and Parks Department until a new manager is hired. The reason for his dismissal has not yet been made public.

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if arrogance was the top bar this director would have won the prize. who needs it! Let’s have a good look at the budget, the programs, the whole department. Change will be good! Quality of life issues are the key to Recreation (children’s BMX park, bike paths, play grounds), and Parks, save, places where people can have fun and enjoy the out of doors. We need some new ideas in our City, not the same old same old. I’m looking forward to a new approach to this Department.


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They’ll probably hire Aaron Ochs for the position.


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just for fun, lets do a tally of what this new administration has completed. ignoring the personnel rules and regulations for transfer of an employee – to check this out just inquire about the position title of the former city clerk and you will find there is no job description, and she is not within a represented group. next ask about the recreation and parks department reorganization and how it violates the municipal code. talley the $$ spent on the contract city attorney. ask why the city is once again going to get a proposal from cal fire and check when the newest proposal from the sheriff is due into city hall to take over the police department. take a look at the letters administration sent out regarding the business license audit that were grossly incorrect and try to understand the water and sewer rate flyer. finally when you think you can’t find out any more, take the pulse of the remaining employees and see how they feel about their job and working for this new administration. and then you tell me things are better.


And by the way, there will be no new recreation and parks director, the department will be contracted out with fire and police following soon after.


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What a fine mess!


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Your gross distortions of fact are based on actions that are bringing the City to a place where it can operate within the funds that are available. The cavalier attitude of past administrations, which did favors for their pals at the expense of most taxpayers left the City in a financial mess.


Cleaning up the mess is not going to be pleasant, but it has to be done for the City to survive and prosper. That means making a lot of difficult decisions. The cleanup is on, and is progressing well. I know that some staff are very happy and proud of what is going on, because I spoke to one such staff member the other day. That particular staff member has been with the City for some years, and is doing very well under the new administration because that person does great work – something that is obvious to anyone who interacts with the person..


As for the staff members who are not happy (assuming, of course, that what you imply is actually true), I suspect that they got very used to a nice, comfortable work environment in which they didn’t have to produce a lot – fairly typical for government jobs, unfortunately. Now, there is a City Manager who expects the staff to work hard to earn their pay. Those who do are obviously rewarded, as evidenced by recent promotions. Those who do not, will be out. That’s how it’s always been in private industry and how it should be in government.


As for contracting out public services, it is becoming a trend in this state, with enough cities having taken the plunge to give our City Manager some examples to study and determine if the move is right for Morro Bay in terms of maintaining public safety AND saving taxpayer money. For example, Santa Ana outsourced its fire department three years ago.


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Pure fallacy. Santa Ana Fire is not “outsourced “.


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…and the hits just keep on comin’. Pretty soon, there will be no one with any experience working for Morro Bay. Then Irons and his cronies can run roughshod over the know-nothings who are left, bending and breaking rules of protocol, and setting up whatever sweet deals they want, with no one to call them out on it. Hope you’re happy, Morro Bay, with the new and unimproved “Good ‘ol Boys/Girls Club”, made up of a bunch of Johnnies-Come-Lately who only give a damn about their own personal agendas.


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” bending and breaking rules of protocol, and setting up whatever sweet deals they want, with no one to call them out on it.” – That was the last administration. “Good ‘ol Boys/Girls Club” – Also the last administration.

Finally the City has competent management that holds employees to a higher performance standard. The City used to be run like a private club where upper management people took care of their pals.

Now, it’s being run as it should be – like a business that needs to profitable in order to survive. That means that some employees have to go, even when they are nice people that we all like.

Good management means making the tough decisions and doing what’s necessary to get the biggest ROI on taxpayer money. Thank goodness that’s finally happening.

The old administration was running the town into the ground. This one is bringing us into the 21st century and out of the sea of debt created by the bad management of their predecessors..


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As usual Linda your wrong

There is no good ole boys club but those of us whose famliy’s have been here for a hundred years or better have been OK with how things had been going if we ha dwanted change we would have changed it,if those of you who have moved here lately don’t like the way it has been run go someplace else.


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wouldn’t you know it! sticking up for corruption!


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It appears that a few people have not yet figured out that the demographic of Morro Bay has changed. The small number of people who used to control the town and run it for their own benefit no longer do. The votes in the last two elections made that very clear. Those who do not like the way things have been run in the past made those changes and have no need to go anywhere. We like it here now.


By the way, just FYI, it is against CCN posting rules to attempt to identify other posters and to use names if you think you might know who they are.


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They do like the bullying tactic. I am flattered by who they think I am, and aspire to be like the named individuals. Thank you and keep up the good work!


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Where are the CNN posting rules? There should be a statement that says “Please be aware that if you write long novels in the comment section, over and over and over, pretty soon people figure out who you are. And with such stong opinions why dont you want people to know you?


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It’s not your job to expose anyone (doxing), deal with the subject and the comments, not who someone


    might

be.


http://calcoastnews.com/comment-guidelines/

“Comment authors who post personal information to expose the real names of any anonymous commenter or otherwise attempt to expose the real names of any anonymous commenter will have their comments deleted and risk account deletion and user banning. (you have a 1 in 80 chance of being correct if 5 years of guesses are any indication)”


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good points


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That looks like lots of income and state tax to me…better make a quarterly payment..


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No big deal — they’re not going to need him when the disincorporate, which is where they are headed whether they like it or not.


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Pretty much what the whole agenda is,then we’ll really be in the Thomas,the county can’t manage what it has already much less taking on more.


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The axe continues to fall. Thank you Joe for your 26 years of loyal service. This admin. is working hard to rid us of all those “bad employees” that worked under the old regime. How many severance packages will we be paying out before were done. I can think of a lot more useful ways to spend the taxpayers $$. Watch out Harbor, PD and Fire you could be next.


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I hope we can have a review of the subsidized ‘adult’ programs in Morro Bay. I am and advocate of Recreation and Parks programs and have supported children’s after school programs, sports programs, new facilities for children, but I don’t believe adult sports need to be subsidized.


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I’m looking forward to a new Rec & Parks Director in Morro Bay.


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