Just a phone call away
All council members miss meetings, but one uses telecommuting to keep up with city business from far away
By Andre Coleman , Joe Piasecki 05/22/2008
TEANECK, NJ — It’s Monday night, time for City Council members to begin a scheduled meeting at Pasadena City Hall, and Councilman Steve Madison is 2,700 miles away.
Yet even from his hotel room in a New York suburb, Madison is ready for city business.
Although he periodically travels across the country for work related to his job as a partner with the Los Angeles law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, the West Pasadena councilman has been able to preserve a solid meeting attendance record by literally phoning it in — watching meetings as they’re streamed live over the Internet and participating in council discussion over the telephone.
Most times that council members are out of town on a Monday they forfeit being part of that week’s official discussion.
Since the start of last year, Councilman Chris Holden, who frequently travels in his council-appointed position as a member of the Bob Hope Airport Authority Board, has missed 11 of 57 meetings, about 19 percent.
Citing conflicts with his job as a teacher and girls’ softball coach, Councilman Steve Haderlein has missed nine.
Councilman Victor Gordo has missed six; and even with his knack for telecommuting, city records show Madison has missed five.
“The truth is [telecommuting] is not optimal, but I think every member is going to have to miss meetings,” said Madison. “I have to travel on business from time to time … [but] I do my level best to try to participate remotely if I do have to be out of town.”
Monday’s meeting was the second time this year Madison has participated in a meeting from afar, but according to one local blogger, avoiding absence through technology is hardly a substitute for really being there.
Aaron Proctor, who has maintained a blog about city politics since making an unsuccessful bid for mayor last year, was until Tuesday night threatening to wage a recall campaign against Madison for “phoning in to council meetings time and time again,” as “phoning it in means someone isn’t giving their all, isn’t giving 100 percent,” he wrote.
Although he lives in Haderlein’s council district and therefore could not legally file a petition to recall Madison, Proctor challenged the councilman last week at www.proctorformayor.com to avoid a recall campaign by returning to city coffers a portion of the monthly stipend he receives as a City Council member.
Being a council member is not a full time job in Pasadena, but members receive a $1,312.44 stipend each month, according to City Clerk Jane Rodriguez, and the mayor receives $1,968.61.
According to the city’s charter, stipends “shall not be reduced for non-attendance at meetings of the City Council,” although they can be withdrawn if a council member is sanctioned for illegal or inappropriate conduct.
Council members also receive health benefits equal to those of executive employees and reimbursement for the cost of hiring a field representative. They are eligible for monthly general expense reimbursements of up to $300 per month, as well as one-time reimbursements of up to $300 for the purchase of cellular phone equipment and $5,000 for the purchase of computer equipment.
It’s no secret to regular blog readers or city officials and others who have participated in his ongoing email question-and-answer series (including these reporters) that the typically humorous
Proctor has shown little more than contempt for Madison on his blog. (It should also be known
that Proctor currently holds a part-time accounting job with Southland Publishing, which prints the Pasadena Weekly, but his personal blog is not affiliated in any way with the company or this newspaper).
On his blog, Proctor has also taken offense at everything from the “lavender ties” Madison sometimes wears to his behavior during meetings. “It’s not a fucking hobby. Important decisions are to be made when you’re ‘multitasking,’ doing your Quinn Emanuel work while sitting at the dais,” Proctor wrote.
For his part, Madison said he was unaware of Proctor’s recall threat because he stopped reading the blog, but Madison was aware that Proctor asks just about everyone he electronically interviews for their opinions about him.
While he was surprised to learn that Madison’s attendance record was third-best among council members elected before 2007, Proctor said it didn’t change his mind.
“Dilly-dallying, not paying attention and just being there for the sake of being there don’t show up on paper,” he said.
Madison said that he and other council members typically inform the mayor before missing a meeting so that business relating to an absent member’s district can be rescheduled.
Holden, who has missed more meetings than any other council member, acknowledged that sometimes life just gets in the way of city business.
“By and large, I try real hard not to miss meetings, but sometimes I get assignments at work at the last minute that take a lot of preparation; other times airport business will overlap. If there is something on the agenda I can probably skip out on, I run it by the city manager and the mayor,” he said.
Second only to Holden in absences, Haderlein said being an educator and a family man makes it hard to juggle his time.
Proctor believes council members should make a better overall effort to attend meetings.
“Shouting ‘Recall Madison!’ at the top of my blogging lungs got everyone to pay some damn attention to what really goes on up there, so my mission is accomplished,” wrote Proctor on his blog.
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