On July 15, 2013, the Mullett Township Board held another
Special Meeting to handle another unforeseen emergency situation. At least the
9th Special Meeting in as many months. The township facilities/maintenance
person had quit after only a few months of employment. Newly elected Supervisor MaryAnne Gale had taken
the initiative with her regime change to dismiss 4 township employees who were part-time
at best and consolidate all those duties into one super employee. Oh, before we
go further, she did hire back one dismissed employee with the understanding
that he would be “fired” again after completing a contracted painting job. Supervisor
Gale has contributed to a fear factor and hostile work environment for township
employees by publicly stating several times that all employees are “at will
employees”, subject to dismissal at any time.
This super employee was hired at $14.50 an hour because, as
some Board members publicly stated, $10 an hour employees are just incompetent
and will not take ownership of a job. I disagree and will personally apologize
for this slur to all the Cheboygan County residents who do a hard day’s work
for $10 an hour or less. This super employee was then allowed to determine his
own hours and apparently banked 60-70 hours of overtime in a few months, paid time
and a half off for each OT hour; all of this despite the well documented
ability to typically finish his 8 hour day by 10 or 11AM.
Now, after spending 2 months last winter advertising,
vetting applications and several months of training, Supervisor Gale with all
her eggs in one basket has no one to perform even simple maintenance tasks.
That’s too bad. Mullett Township previously had several people ready, able, and
available to do all of those tasks if Supervisor Gale had not fired them.
