Do you think it is appropriate for a city council member to use their council position and city email to solicit a letter of recommendation from the City Manager for their own personal employment? Why or why not?

— Shannon

Responses

Abigail Strickland

As a Planning Commissioner for the City of Arcata and a public servant (i.e. I previously worked for the County and now work for the State) I am well versed in the importance of keeping work and personal business separate. That being said, you should never conduct personal business using your City resources such as your City-provided email address. 

As for requesting the letter of recommendation itself- if the City Manager felt ethics were being violated by providing one, then they should say so and decline. 

Dan Shahin

Thanks for the question, Shannon.

I honestly didn’t know the answer until I did a little digging through the city’s own documents. (Links at the bottom, if you want to read along.)

Short version: yes, technically it’s a violation. Council email isn’t to be used for personal business. And the City Manager is someone the Council hires and evaluates, so a personal favor asked from the council seat puts the City Manager in an awkward position. If an evaluation came up after that, she should have sat it out rather than weighing in on someone who’d just done her a kindness. That’s really all there is to it. Nothing was hidden, and the request itself was perfectly polite.

And honestly, I can see how it happens. You’re in your city inbox all day, the person you’re writing is someone you work alongside constantly, and it doesn’t occur to you that a two-line favor crosses a line. I suspect most of us could have done exactly the same thing without a second thought.

Which is what makes it such an easy thing to put right. “That should have gone from my personal account, my mistake.” That’s all this ever needed.

Sunshine is the best disinfectant, as the saying goes. A records request turned up a small lapse, which is the system working as designed.

Sources:

Arcata Code of Ethics (Appendix F, adopted July 20, 2005):
https://www.cityofarcata.org/DocumentCenter/View/1276/Appendix-F–Arcata-Code-of-Ethics-PDF

2024 Council Protocol Manual (the email and equipment rules are §3.2 and §5(C)(6)):
https://www.cityofarcata.org/DocumentCenter/View/14552/2024-City-Council-Protocol-Manual

 

Both are also reachable from cityofarcata.org/814/City-Council-Protocol-Responsibilities

Blase Bonpane

No. 

I’ll answer your second question at the end of this response.

AI can kill off all humanity by hacking into military data including all nuclear arsenals. Arcata has multiple AI data centers and AI developers like Bezos’ Amazon making proposals which support AI development.

Wildfires are poised, because of climate change and political denial of it, to burn and or choke Arcatans like in most communities but moreson because we surrounded by second growth forest due to deregulated timber extraction. Arcata needs to prepare for this increased risk.

Arcatans tax money is going without their consent or the consent of their elected representatives, to bomb, starve and torture Palestinians, Iranians, Jordanians, and many other civilians, immigrants (or people who are wrongly accused of being any of the above), in violation of US and International Laws. 

Arcata’s ability to provide for its senior citizens, is severely weakened by homicidal cuts to health care and the theft of social security and public services. This is money which instead was paid to billionaires who benefit from the existential threat of AI dysregulation and military spending and profiteering.

Arcata’s Transgender youth, as I hear about from kids in  all the local schools for which I sub, are suffering bullying more than the already-heart-breaking rate before 2025 due to the MAGA campaigns aimed at dismantling their mental and physical health care and paying for ads which model bullying transgender people everywhere. This stresses out all students, on both side of the bullying and those who witness it.

As Arcata schools face budget crises, kids who need aides or special education provisions are waiting in line for services and those aide jobs are not getting filled because the pay is incommensurate with the vast skills and hearts of gold needed to do them. All special ed teachers, parents (like you D.) and all aides are awe-inspiring saints to me and give me goosebumps).

Arcata has already had citizens attacked by ICE agents (why many of us came to protest recently), and others killed by racist violence (Josiah Lawson) that we were neither able to prevent nor prosecute. Our Sanctuary City measures need to have new teeth able to withstand the new escalated warfare by ICE, DHS and the Department of “Justice” which is sending thousands of people EVERY DAY to be tortured and eat worm-ridden food in cages inside “detention centers.”

Shannon, Thank you for your question. I think city officials are better off using personal emails for non-city business.

I certainly know that, if I get a city council email account, I will be using it to address our most pressing crises and to pursue our best shared legacy and visions for social and environmental justice. One reason for I articulate these priorities is that I have the endorsement of Dolores Huerta, (and others I list elsewhere), her foundation and her broad based, “la causa”, and I intend to make her proud.

¡ Si Se Puede ! 

 

Think Glocally, Vote Blase Bonpane for City Council !

 

 

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