DUBOIS – Dave Logan presented himself before DuBois City Council at Monday night’s meeting to challenge comments made by council at previous meetings.
Comments in question were those made by City Manager John “Herm” Suplizio, Councilman Randy Schmidt, and Mayor Gary Gilbert’s challenge to Logan to make his comments before council and not in a letter to the editor.
Logan first welcomed Ed Walsh to council before he began his dispute against Suplizio’s salary as city manager. He wanted to know how Suplizio’s salary was set at $83,000 when the city manager of Johnstown was receiving a $65,000 salary. Suplizio reminded Logan that his statement in the paper was that he made “tens of thousands of dollars more”.
He also asked council how they went about looking for a new city manager. He read a statement from Johnstown that outlined how they found their city manager and asked council how they only had three applicants when Johnstown had 30. Johnstown had a five-member search committee who narrowed their 30 applicants down to three.
Schmidt and Logan went back and forth regarding how many candidates applied. Schmidt said “plenty” and Logan claimed he said “20”. Logan also asked who interviewed the candidates from council. Schmidt said the other candidates weren’t interviewed by council.
Logan said Johnstown was able to hire a manager in three months, something that took three years for DuBois to do.
“I don’t know why it took three years, “said Logan.
“If you were so concerned, why did it take you three years to come here,” questioned Schmidt. Suplizio told Logan it would be hard to answer most of his questions without the search committee there.
It was then questioned as to how long Suplizio’s contract was for. In response, Logan was told that there wasn’t a contract and he would remain the manager as long as council saw fit. If it was determined at a later date to draw up a contract they would do so.
When Suplizio was able to address the statements being made by Logan, he was continuously interrupted until Gilbert wrapped the gavel and ended the exchange.
Logan ended by saying, “You haven’t even heard the beginning of this.”
Also on hand was former City Manager Ron Trzyna. He came before council to clarify the amount of his salary, which was disclosed by Suplizio at a past meeting at $76, 000. Trzyna stated in 2005 he made $60,552 and in 2006 he made $44, 816. He said these figures are quite different than the salary amount previously disclosed by Suplizio. He said that there was a retraction from the Courier Express, where it was published, but not by Suplizio.
Trzyna said that the discrepancies have caused grief within his workplace. He said, “I’d appreciate if the city manager, any member of council, and past members of the search committee would stop making false statements associated with my salary.”
Trzyna said there would not be a discussion about the city manager’s salary if it wasn’t for all the hard work he and solicitor Cherry did with the sewerage lawsuit with the township. He stated that it was winning that lawsuit that lead to the increase in the city manager’s salary. Trzyna also said that when he began as city manager his salary was $50,000 and when he left three years ago, it was $62,000, which “is not a large salary for someone with an MBA in finance. I spent many long hours on legal preparation for the lawsuit, was berated on the witness stand, and had a lot of sleepless nights.”
He asked council how many people applied and how many people were interviewed along with Suplizio. According to Trzyna, if the qualifications change in a job de scri ption, which they did when it was no longer required for applicants to hold a college degree, the job has to be reposted. He questioned council as to whether that was done as well. He said when he was hired a statement was made to his wife that he “only had an MBA in finance” and how amazed he is at how far they have regressed.
