published: Friday, September 05, 2008

Complaint filed against councilman

ROXANNE BROWN

Staff Writer

MINNEOLA -- City Councilman Pat Kelley faces a formal complaint filed against him by two city employees, but he says he's learning from the experience.

Kelley was notified last Monday of the complaint.

An e-mail from City Manager Sam Oppelaar to Kelley dated Aug. 26 asked for a meeting and a request to "refrain from directly meeting with or speaking with any city staff members" until a resolution was reached.

"I'm taking it as a learning experience," Kelley said. "One that's taught me that maybe I just need to sit back and think before I speak."

The first complaint, submitted by Finance Director Laura Zielonka, details a meeting between her and Kelley on Aug. 21.

The meeting soon turned "hostile," as described by Zielonka. She said Kelley quickly began arguing about every line item of the budget and showed a negative attitude through body language, posture and tone of voice.

Zielonka claims Kelley demanded she find a way to cut $400,000 from the budget to avoid a property tax increase and was upset about things like bonuses, an open city engineer position to be filled, training and fire fighter overtime items on the budget. She said Kelley also berated other city employees, indicating that money for training would be wasted on them.

She said Kelley was shaking his head and making sounds of disgust.

"His face was red, his body language was hostile and his tone was threatening. It was at this point that I felt as if I was being targeted by Mr. Kelley and I was starting to feel extremely uncomfortable being in the room alone with him," Zielonka wrote.

Zielonka, feeling "extremely threatened," said she left the conference room and asked that Human Resource Manager Paula Carver join them.

Kelley then started speaking with Zielonka and Carver and said he was going to bring up another money saving initiative calling for a 10 percent pay cut across the board or layoffs.

Zielonka said Kelley asked them "would you take a pay cut or would you rather me lay someone else off?"

"Mr. Kelley's behavior and demeanor was becoming even more hostile and erratic. I could not even face Mr. Kelley anymore and I looked to our Human Resources Manager for support," Zielonka wrote.

Zielonka's letter alleges Kelley also questioned her abilities and education. She said Kelley also threatened to have her fired for not having a Certified Public Accountant's license.

Zielonka said she reminded Kelley of her master's degree.

"At this point, I was finished. I had suffered 45 minutes of threatening behavior, hostile attacks, berating comments smirks and remarks, and I was threatened with my job. I stood up and excused myself from the meeting," Zielonka wrote. "I was completely shaken up. I felt like I had just been in a boxing match, and I was sick to my stomach and shaking."

Carver filed her own complaint and detailed comments similar to those in Zielonka's complaint.

"Nothing we could say or do was having a positive impact on Mr. Kelley. His comments to Laura and I both were hostile, intimidating, threatening, and harassing to say the least..." Carver wrote.

Carver said the incident left her feeling physically ill and said she could not eat dinner.

Kelley said he realizes his behavior was off-kilter and said that's why he apologized shortly after the incident and again publicly at the Aug. 21 city council meeting. The apology came during Kelley's report before the council had even heard about what had occurred.

Zielonka's letter acknowledges an apology before the meeting as she was packing up to go home. She said Kelley told her: "I'm sorry for the comments, so when you go and tell Sam (Oppelaar) what happened, at least make sure to tell him that I said, 'Sorry.' "

"I proactively apologized to her (Zielonka) publicly during the meeting for what I had said. My actions were truly frustration over incomplete data. I had no intent to question her character or ability to do her job," Kelley said Wednesday. "It was out of passion of the moment. I made a mistake. I'm not sitting here denying it, and I am truly sorry about it."

Zielonka, however, claims it's not the first time she's witnessed hostile behavior from Kelley, a point reiterated in the complaint.

In the letter, Zielonka said her "concern of a hostile environment," will become a "declaration of a hostile work environment" should another incident like this should occur again.

Kelley said he respects Zielonka's feelings, but said it may be his passion on issues that may sometimes be misconstrued by others.

He said that in the future, he plans to communicate more via e-mail and through Oppelaar directly.

Oppelaar said he met with Zielonka, Carver and with Kelley on Tuesday to discuss the situation.

"My obligation to my employees is to discuss the situation with all parties and try to resolve whatever issues there may be," Oppelaar said. "At this time, we are going to move ahead and continue to do the job we need to do in working out the budget, making sure, as I told Mr. Kelley, that since we have a really difficult job before us, we should all stay level-headed, professional and keep an open exchange if ideas. It (situation) is now under control."