Public Works staff showed up en masse at the city council meeting on Dec. 17

The workers expressed concern about the lack of promotional opportunities and effort to staff vacant roles

Maintenance Worker Kevin Mulligan gives a public comment at the Dec. 17 city council meeting. (Photo by Ezra Wallach)

All but one member of Sebastopol’s Public Works Department stood for public comment at Tuesday’s city council meeting to express concern over staffing levels and promotional opportunities.

According to City Manager Don Schwartz, the city is currently in negotiations with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021, which represents the department. The city could not comment any further on negotiations with the union, but Schwartz noted that it was common for city employees to share their thoughts at council meetings, especially during contract negotiations.

Earlier this year, the Public Works Department lost their longest-tenured maintenance worker. The city has yet to fill the position and, according to Schwartz, has frozen it until the city’s “budget becomes more clear”—although he said they have since brought on a temporary worker.

“It is not only that we have not replaced the person, but the same things still have to happen, so everyone kind of just picks up the slack,” said Kevin Mulligan, one of the maintenance workers who spoke at the council meeting.

Mulligan spoke with the Sebastopol Times during a break in his workday that had him fixing a leak at the Sebastopol library. Mulligan says his work and that of his team is mostly tying up loose ends around the city to make sure all infrastructure is secure. The city says the department’s “core responsibility lies in the economical, efficient planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of our city's essential infrastructure.”

“We haven’t really even gotten any internal promotions,” Mulligan said. “When you’re doing a job and someone above you leaves, usually you assume—especially when the agency you’re working for doesn’t hire a new person from the outside—that that’s your opportunity to move up. We’re just looking for employee recognition, upward mobility, things like that.”

Mulligan said that only maintenance workers, of which there are now seven, not laborers, are able to be on standby during their days off. Standby requires that a member of the department is available 24/7, ready to help the city if something comes up on the weekend. Mulligan said that when one or two employees call in sick, the rotation can become evermore burdensome given the decrease in staff.

Mulligan also noted during his public comment that the starting wage for laborers at Public Works is weak compared to that of other positions in the city.

The starting salary for a laborer in 2023 was between $44,366 and $53,922 annually, depending on experience, while the starting salary for a police dispatcher, for example, was between $64,566 and $78,501. Some other members of city government have since gotten raises, such as Mary Gourley, the city clerk/assistant city manager, who recently received a raise of $46,700 a year to bring her base salary up to $212,592.

Sebastopol’s budget for 2024-25 featured a pronounced decrease in expenses for the Public Works Department. This came as a result of the city’s decision to consolidate Public Works with the Engineering Department, which resulted in a $218,213 reduction in the budget.

“We know that maintaining our infrastructure and the appearance of the City is important,” the city wrote in this year’s budget. “While we are cutting expenses significantly in Public Works, this position will help us meet expectations from our residents for a clean, beautiful and welcoming City that will attract both businesses and tourists to our City.”

Dante Del Prete recently retired as director of Public Works, after 28 years with the department. To replace him, the city recently hired Mark Rincon-Ibarra, who will get $202,464 a year, as the director of both Public Works and the Engineering Departments. He is scheduled to start on Jan. 13, which is also when the two departments will officially combine.

Mulligan of Public Works said that while his staff wanted to make a statement at the most recent council meeting to inspire the city into action, there are no hard feelings between them and city staff.

“We’re just one piece of what makes the city work,” he said. “I understand that there are a lot of different moving parts in the city. The idea is not to make a show of force but to let [the city] know that we care enough to stay an hour after work. So that was a point of us all getting together and standing up. We wanted to keep it short and sweet and as cordial as possible….We just wanted to make our voice heard”