Warren utilities director suspended for 10 days

By Ed Runyan | August 4, 2009 at 12:08a.m.

A tracking system caught an employee driving to places he shouldn’t and conducting personal business on city time.

WARREN — Robert Davis, the city’s director of utilities, has been suspended without pay for 10 days for failing to fill out a travel request form and having nonemployees in a city vehicle for a July 24 trip that included golfing.

Davis, five other city employees and two nonemployees used two city vehicles to drive to Black Hawk Golf Course in Beaver Falls, Pa. for a training session and golf, said Gary Cicero, the city’s human resources director.

The training pertained to water department equipment such as pumps and filters and lasted about four hours; the golfing followed the training, Cicero said.

No action was taken against the other five employees, Cicero said, because they were being directed by Davis.

The five also were on vacation at the time of the trip because of a last-minute change in the timing of the trip, Doug Franklin, safety-service director said.

Davis has told Franklin the five don’t plan to ask to be paid for the four hours they were at the training.

The two nonemployees on the trip were Davis’ father and a son of one of the employees, Cicero said.

As for Davis, he isn’t in any trouble for golfing on city time, Franklin said, explaining that it is acceptable to golf while on a training trip.

“We don’t separate the two,” Franklin said.

However, the city requires an employee to fill out a form when a trip takes him or her 50 or more miles from the city, and this trip was 56 miles each way.

Franklin sent Davis his disciplinary letter Friday.

Meanwhile, an employee of the city’s wastewater department who was fired in June for driving a city vehicle outside of the city and conducting personal business on city time has filed a grievance.

Larry Simpson was fired for driving a 2-ton city dump truck to the AT&T store on Elm Road in Cortland on May 22. He spent 43 minutes on personal business, the city said.

Simpson also drove the truck 67 miles that day for noncity business, Cicero said. The city discovered that Simpson drove the truck to places such as Perkins Park and Packard Park that day, and those places were not in the areas where he was assigned to work, Cicero said.

The city discovered Simpson’s travels because his truck had a GPS tracking device in it, Cicero said. Gasoline usage among the city’s 200 vehicles has dropped since the devices went into use in February, Cicero said.

The devices are placed in various vehicles without the employee’s knowledge.

In his grievance, Simpson argued that his job termination may have denied him equitable treatment in relation to other city employees. He asked to “take [the] same punishment as police officer Emanuel Nites.” He also said use of the GPS device constituted “entrapment.”

Nites was suspended for 10 days last Friday. His rank is being reduced from sergeant to patrolman effective Saturday.

Cicero said the city waited to rule on Simpson’s grievance until after a decision on Nites’ punishment was made.

runyan@vindy.com