HR Email: Marx, Barry 11-8-12

From: Superintendent of Highways <highways@townofnewpaltz.org>
To: Donpaltz@aol.com
Cc: kevinbarrylaw@yahoo.com; r.lev@outlook.com
Sent: Thursday, November 8, 2012 8:53 AM
Subject: positions

Christopher Marx
Superintendent of Highways
Town of New Paltz
845.255.5050

Don,

I don’t know where the eight positions came from. In conversations I have said that possible cuts could be made if the town outsourced some of the time consuming jobs such as mowing of all the ball fields and cleaning of the buildings. As you know the town laid off two people in the B&G dept. already, leaving the staff at six.
The thing that puzzles me is that out of all the committees that are working on consolidation only one has asked for a department heads opinion, and that was the finance committee, and then only once. When I was present at your meetings it was on my own . I believe that consolidation is a good thing but not getting the facts from the people that do the work every day is a big RED FLAG to me and shows me that things are being rushed and all sides are not being looked at.

I am impressed with most of the people on this committee that you sit on and all of your backgrounds are impressive to me , but as far as knowing what it takes to keep the infrastructure running in this town, you all need a lot of work. It is my opinion that from what I’m getting out of these meetings is that we are going to sacrifice services to at the expense of safety and the decline of our already stressed infrastructure.

Please don’t take this as a personal attack, you don’t know how much I appreciate you contacting me. If you want to talk further on this I’m at your disposal.

My office telephone is 255-5050, cell xxx-xxxx, home xxx-xxxx.

Thanks again
Chris.


From: kevinbarrylaw@yahoo.com
To: r.lev@outlook.com
CC: donpaltz@aol.com, amyblueberry@gmail.com, yalescribe@att.net,briankimbiz@gmail.com
Sent: 11/8/2012 1:06:12 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
Subj: Re: positions


Randall: I just spoke with Chris Marx who apparently was confronted this morning by an employee in his Buildings and Grounds department, who was holding a copy of the New Paltz Times which reported our subcommittee was recommending cutting 8 people from the Town's building and Grounds department. I reminded Chris of a conversation I had with him in the breakroom of Town hall several months ago about potential position reductions in a merged Buildings and Grounds and Village Department of Publc Works and his belief that up to 8 positions could be eliminated. He confirmed this conversation. I told Chris that our subcommitee was not recommending 8 immediate cuts from his current department alone as reported by the newspaper and that our subcommittee also felt positions eliminations in a merged government should occur through attrition and retirement. I told him to get a copy of our report from the Town Clerk and then contact me if he had any questions. In retrospect, I probably should have had Chris review the report before it was finalized. Kevin