As our regular readers will attest, we’ve got more than a few complaints about how City Mgr. Jim Hock is performing (or neglecting) his duties as the City’s highest-paid – by far – public official.

The subject of one of those complaints was on full display at last night’s City Council COW meeting, where the discussion of Hock’s revised draft “Council Policy Statement 8: Labor Negotiation Policy” provided a good measure of entertainment – if one’s idea of “entertainment” is having bamboo splinters jammed under one’s fingernails.  

Policy No. 8 is the latest iteration of what started out as Hock’s “Labor Negotiations Guidelines,” which he drafted in a manner so skewed toward keeping secret the terms of City union contract negotiations that it actually demanded that City Council “closed session discussions must remain confidential” [emphasis added] – even though such a confidentiality requirement would appear to violate the Illinois Open Meetings Act (“IOMA”).

What Hock trotted out before the Council last night was a slightly toned-down version.  Instead of requiring that closed session discussions “must” remain confidential, the new version provides only that they “should” remain confidential.  But it does delete “the public” from those entitled to receive “timely and accurate information about the negotiations.”   

Which raises the question: Why is Hock so flippin’ concerned about keeping the City’s union negotiations secret – especially from “the public” – after years, if not decades, of the City never having any labor relations policy at all?

We suspect it has something to do with the upcoming (in May) union negotiations, especially given how much flak Hock and Fire Chief Mike Zywanski caught from Mayor Dave Schmidt over the botched firefighters union contract negotiations, where Chief Z (with either Hock’s blessing or his neglect) locked the City into a set of negotiating “Ground Rules” that effectively gagged City officials and prevented them from reporting the progress of negotiations to the taxpayers.

Catching flak from the mayor, however, doesn’t seem to deter Hock, especially since he can usually count on almost unquestioning loyalty from Alds. Joe Sweeney (1st), Rich DiPietro (2nd), Jim Smith (3rd) and Tom Bernick (6th) no matter how inept (or deceitful?) his performance.  And even Alds. Sal Raspanti (4th) and Marty Maloney (7th) have so far seemed more inclined toward averting their eyes rather than directly challenging Hock on even his more egregious conduct.

But last night Hock got grilled by the mayor and some members of the Council – including (gasp!) Bernick.  Little Tommy turned the uber-snarl he usually reserves for the mayor directly on Hock after the City Manager bumbled and stumbled under questioning by Schmidt about the draft policy, before finally admitting that he hadn’t even consulted with the City’s labor counsel (attorney Robert J. Smith, Jr.).

So the Council deferred further consideration of Policy No. 8 until Hock can meet with Smith, presumably to gin up some disingenuous explanations for why this policy (especially its secrecy provisions) is actually a good thing for the City and its taxpayers.

And we’re betting that, by then, Hock will have had a private sit-down or two with Bernick to get the latter back on the reservation.

Meanwhile, we have to wonder just how whacked out (or duplicitous?) Hock must be when he drafts and recommends a City Council policy – which by its very nature is supposed to govern only Council conduct – that goes so far afield that it actually deletes references to “the City Council, and Council staff” from the “Purpose” section of the policy! 

Do we really need a new City Council policy which doesn’t really apply to the Council but, instead, is designed to keep the public in the dark about union contract negotiations while also empowering “the City” (a/k/a the City Manager) to cut whatever deal he wants with “union representatives” over “the rules that will be used during the negotiation process”? 

Do we really need a City Manager who acts like he can go “rogue” whenever he feels the urge, knowing that if at least five aldermen don’t have the cojones to sack him “for cause” he can only be launched with $120,000 in severance – compliments of the knuckleheaded employment contract given him in late 2010 by several now ex-aldermen and current Alds. Sweeney and DiPietro?  

Is this, really, all you can get in the way of city manager services for $200,000+ these days?

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