According to locals living in Beacon for decades, the City of Beacon is not known for firing city employees. When the you, you might find out by clicking refresh on the latest FOILs that were published by the City of Beacon. You certainly will hear about new hires and promotions by the City of Beacon during their weekly City Council Meetings, where City Councilmembers usually need to vote on a hire or promotion.

But if anyone is being fired, you will not hear about it. Such decisions are made in private during something called “Executive Session” which is a private meeting with the City Council that the public has no access to.

To seek information, just ask several people who know people who have worked for the City of Beacon over the past few decades. In these stories, you may hear stories of a white employee(s) testing positive for marijuana before it was legal to smoke in public or banned in Beacon’s public parks. You may hear stories of a vehicle accident that was never reported. Or of a gun casually being brought into a department destination before Beacon banned personal guns from being brought onto city property during work hours last year. You might see bent metal on the garage door of new Highway Garage, indicating that a vehicle backed or rammed into it, but that a collision report never made it into the books. On background, ALBB has seen a few photos, and heard from people with knowledge of such examples.

During the 12/13/2021 Monday Night Workshop Meeting, the City Administrator Chris White put forth to the City Council an approval to move $45,900 more dollars from an unrelated area of the budget - a real estate area of the budget - into a legal section of the budget to cover “associated employee discipline beyond the budget to date,” as noted in the proposal included in the Agenda packet for the City Council to review for the record.

This is not the first transfer of thousands of unplanned dollars for “Employee Discipline” during the pandemic, which has resulted in a nation-wide labor shortage and highlight of poor working conditions that may include emotional abuse in several industries. The first noted transfer of unplanned dollars was $66,418 to “Employee Discipline” from “CSEA Union Matters/FIRE IAFF Union Matters,” which ALBB wrote about here. This brings the total of unplanned spending on “Employee Discipline” to over $111,000 by the City of Beacon for 2021 alone.

The second noted proposed transfer tonight of $45,900 to “Employee Discipline” is being transferred from “In REM Sale of Property.”

What is an REM Sale of Property? An “REM Sale of Property” means, as City Administrator Chris White explained during the meeting, that when the City of Beacon takes control of a property in Beacon usually due to inability to pay, the City of Beacon can then resell that property and keep the profit. In 2020, there was a handful of those properties. In 2021, Chris noted, there was one such property. Therefore, they had real estate cash sitting that apparently had not been earmarked yet.

Who Or What Is The Employee Discipline Of Over $111,000 In 2021 For?

The City of Beacon will not answer this question if ALBB were to ask, as they have a blanket policy of not answering to “personnel matters.” However, there is at least one employee who has had at least 8 Employee Discipline Hearings this year, and has been on forced paid and unpaid leave for the entirety of 2021: Reuben Simmons. ALBB sat in on at least one of those hearings.

Reuben Simmons, longtime employee in the Highway Department since 2002, and a Beaconite who is an involved member of the community, was Beacon’s former Highway Superintendent (ie lead position in that department, listen to ALBB’s podcast about it here) and has been the subject of Employee Discipline for quite some time. Starting in 2018, his case has taken unusual twists and turns. Including the dissolving of his job as Highway Superintendent based on a Civil Service technicality of the incorrect job title.

Beacon’s current head of the Highway Department, Superintendent of Streets Michael “Mickey” Manzi, who used to serve under Reuben as a staff member, replaced Reuben as head of the department after Reuben’s job title dissolved. According to documents that ALBB has seen, Michael “Mickey” Manzi continues to find fault in Reuben’s past work performance, and writes him up on charges that the City Administrator Chris White justifies for Reuben’s paid or unpaid leave status.

Those charges resulted in at least two 30-day periods of unpaid leave in 2021. Otherwise, Reuben has been kept on paid leave, but according to a letter sent to him by City Administrator Chris White, cannot come to public spaces in Beacon or talk to fellow employees within the working hours of the work day, until his disciplinary hearings are done. ALBB has attended one such hearing at the invitation of Reuben and received the Zoom link from the mediation attorney Jay Siegel, Esq., but was asked to leave when the City of Beacon objected to any reporters or members of the public attending.

What Are These “Charges” Justifying Unpaid Leave, Paid Leave, and Over $111,000 In Unplanned “Employee Discipline” Money?

ALBB has seen the documentation of charges sent to Reuben, attempting to justify the “discipline,” which ALBB has learned amounts to accusations of things like talking to people for too long outside while on the job, or taking too long of a lunch.

Lunch for the Highway Department employees, ALBB is told, is 30 minutes. Which really just gives enough time to order and go from Mr. V’s and eat it in a Highway Department truck.

Witnesses have been called to at least 8 hearings deliberating Reuben’s case, where the City’s attorney Lance Klein of Keane and Beane questions those people included in the charges. Some of those witnesses have denied the charges and length of time that Reuben has spoken to them while outside on the job, or the logistics of a long lunch time that deserves penalty.

One example of a disputed charge against Reuben is allegedly talking to a member of the public in Memorial Park (which is also the location of a Highway Department shed) for 2 hours. The witness for this charge allegedly denied it during the hearing when questioned by Lance the attorney.

If Reuben and this member of the public did speak for any number of moments, then a policy of any Highway Department employee speaking to any member of the public while out on public city streets, sidewalks, or parks would be in violation of some policy in the City of Beacon, would seem odd, counter-intuitive of an inclusive community and unproductive. Members of the public are not allowed to speak to city employees while on the job? Or risk getting written up if on the wrong side of a supervisor? Those supervisors being Michael “Mickey” Manzi and David Way.

In addition to speaking to members of the public in public, Reuben has also been accused of taking an extended lunch break. Lunch breaks for the City of Beacon are 30 minutes. Any moment after that due to long lunch lines or traffic could qualify as a violation equal to this treatment.

Members Of The Public Begin Speaking Out

After years of silence, Reuben spoke out at a recent City Council meeting, addressing the elephant in the room - himself. He spoke directly and was well spoken in his thoughts, as he was when presenting city street status updates to the public and City Council during his time as Highway Superintendent from 2017-2018.

The City Council often meets in private Executive Sessions discussing “Personnel” and “Litigation” and have the legal protection of not disclosing who or what they are talking about.

Reuben - who is Black and is one of the few Black employees in the public works departments - has also been accused of speaking loudly to his supervisor Michael “Mickey” Manzi while voluntarily reporting an accident Reuben had in a City vehicle. According to multiple sources, Mickey, the Highway Department’s Superintendent of Streets who used to be Reuben’s employee years ago, found Reuben’s tone uncomfortable. Therefore, Mickey added the tone to the charges justifying unpaid leave.

This issue with “tone” is despite rumors from multiple people - in a generational age range - that several in the Beacon public works departments speak gruffly to each other on a regular basis, possibly even using racial slurs. Those direct mentions have not yet come to light yet in any public confessions.

It is notable that when Reuben was first placed on unpaid leave in January 2021 for the pursuit of these charges, the City of Beacon unveiled it’s Diversity Statement months prior in October 2020, where Beacon’s newly hired HR Director, Gina Basile, noted there was tension in the Highway Department.

During the City Council Meeting on December 6, 2021, longtime hawk of city government and regular participant in Public Comment, Theresa Kraft, spoke up. Not naming names, she made allusions: “Beacon is a strong, supportive community. It always has been, and always will be. We watch out for our neighbors. But enforcement is key [referencing to the spike in unlawful driving in Beacon and the recent death on Main Street and Teller Avenue]. I question how much the city wasted on litigation of an employee who took too long of a lunch break. I see at the end of tonight's agenda there is an executive Session for Personal and Litigation. Perhaps that alone could have paid to ease the food insecurity throughout Beacon for a few years. Holding a grudge is holding all Beacon residents hostage.” You can listen to her full speech here.

Background On Reuben’s Unpaid/Paid Leave - An Additional Expense To The City Of Beacon

Starting in January 2021, Reuben was placed on unpaid leave for more than one session of a 30-day unpaid leave status by City Administrator Chris White. Unpaid leave is difficult at any time, but for a Highway Department employee, January is the gravy month. It is the month they make overtime pay in plowing days during blizzards.

When not on unpaid leave, Reuben remains on paid leave. Unless new charges are filed against him, and he gets a new letter from City Administrator Chris White stating that he is on unpaid leave again.

The Union protecting and advocating for Highway Department Employees is CSEA. In January, Beacon’s representative and president was Paula Becker, who works as an employee in the Finance Department for the City of Beacon with Susan Tucker, Beacon’s Finance Director who signs off on these budget recommendations. Paula recently received a promotion and raise from the City of Beacon.

When ALBB called Paula to confirm Reuben’s unpaid status back when it started in January 2021, City Administrator Chris White emailed ALBB to say that ALBB should not contact any staff with questions, and to only address him. After publishing an article on this matter, City Administrator Chris White declined to answer any more questions from ALBB on any matter.

Listen to Reuben explain the start of his employment situation on ALBB’s podcast recorded in July 2020 here. His employment disputes started in 2018.