What a mess
Cronk plays City Council again.
You gotta hand it to Spencer Cronk. He's almost certainly about to get fired, but not without leaving a big mess for his successor to clean up.
With Council poised to approve a resolution by Chito Vela asking city management to negotiate a one-year contract with the police association, he and the police union suddenly announced a four-year contract and held a press conference to celebrate it 30 minutes before the Council meeting began. You may recall this is something he couldn't be bothered to do last week in response to a historic natural disaster.
Cronk's ploy worked. With the help of the police association and other members of city management, he succeeded in confusing or scaring enough Council members into voting to postpone action on Vela's resolution. Council will convene an emergency meeting Wednesday to decide what to do: approve the 4-year deal or tell city management to go back to the bargaining table with the union to negotiate a one-year deal.
What happened at the meeting...
Vela kicked things off by describing Cronk's actions as an unacceptable inference in the policymaking process and said it is time for a new city manager.
