Mayor Al Pinheiro will hold his first
”
Coffee with the Mayor
”
Monday morning to encourage residents to directly communicate
with him regarding the goings-on at City Hall.
Mayor Al Pinheiro will hold his first “Coffee with the Mayor” Monday morning to encourage residents to directly communicate with him regarding the goings-on at City Hall.
Residents can already find his personal cell phone number on the city’s Web site, and anyone can make an appointment to see him, but Pinheiro wants to make contacting him even easier, he said. Pinheiro was inspired to start the meetings – which he announced during last week’s council meeting – by the thousands of comments that The Dispatch’s online readers have left in the comment section, often times seizing on a couple of points and creating a tidal wave of tirades, he said.
“Obviously (The Dispatch’s) blogs are a concern to me. A lot of people just get started on there with half the information and just take it so far,” Pinheiro said. “I will never answer on those blogs or get in there and get started in some pissing contest … Anyone who wants answers can come get a hold of me.”
Just take the council’s March 23 decision to impose a wage freeze until June 2010. That came after The Dispatch reported that 31 employees had received more than $130,000 in merit pay hikes during layoffs and declining city revenues after the council directed City Administrator Tom Haglund to cut back across the board. Employees can only receive such raises – also known as “step increases” – after a supervisor’s performance review and only until they reach their positions’ pay ceiling. It is a long-standing policy in union contracts that also applies to non-union personnel here and at other public agencies throughout the Bay Area, but Gilroy officials complained this point – which was clearly stated in the article and subsequent articles on the subject – was lost in the headlines and subsequent chatter.
“I saw a couple of comments online, and I called a couple of individuals and gave them the whole information, and then they had a different perspective,” Pinheiro said.
The mayor pointed to Gilroy resident Ron Kirkish, a regular on The Dispatch’s comment boards, as an example. Peeved with the idea of raises amid layoffs, Kirkish met with Pinheiro for 1.5 hours last week to discuss the issue, after which he said he planned to reconsider before typing his opinion online in the future.
“I promised I would give (Pinheiro) a heads-up. Depending on if I’m satisfied or not with his answer, then I’ll blog,” Kirkish said. “When everyone wanted to lynch (Haglund) for the raise issue, well, certain things came out, and (the council and city officials) admitted there was something wrong and that the system’s broken, so let’s fix it.”
Council’s town hall meetings typically garner slim turnouts and Pinheiro does not have particular expectations this time, but he said he wants to make sure residents know they can always sit down with him.
“If people have time to stand in a blog, why not come in during the morning or the evening and get it straight from the mayor’s mouth,” Pinheiro said. “If I don’t have an answer, I’ll get it.”
Coffee with the Mayor
What: A chance to vent to, talk with and ask questions of the mayor
Where: City Council Chambers, 7351 Rosanna St., or Police Department Community Room, 7301 Hanna St.
When:
-April 20, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
-April 23, 7 p.m., City Council Chambers
-April 25, 10 a.m., City Council Chambers
-May 18, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
-May 28, 7 p.m., City Council Chambers
-June 8, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
-June 9, 7 p.m., Police Department Community Room
-June 13, 10 a.m., City Council Chambers
-July 20, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
-July 23, 7 p.m., City Council Chambers
-Aug. 1, 10 a.m., City Council Chambers
-Aug. 3, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
-Sept. 21, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
-Sept. 23, 7 p.m., Police Department Community Room
-Oct. 17, 10 a.m., City Council Chambers
-Oct. 19, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
-Oct. 21, 7 p.m., City Council Chambers
-Nov. 16, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
-Nov. 24, 7 p.m., Police Department Community Room
-Dec. 12, 10 a.m., City Council Chambers
-Dec. 16, 7 p.m., City Council Chambers
-Dec. 21, 8 a.m., City Council Chambers
