Arnold City Council lays off public works employee with an email vote

Arnold City Council this week ratified a vote to lay off a public works employee and approve seeking another.

There was nothing unusual about the action council took Tuesday except, perhaps, for the voting method.

It was done by email.

The email vote was initiated by Councilman Adam Zweig on Jan. 25 to lay off Matt Ashbaugh, a non-union, temporary public works employee whose services Zweig said were no longer needed. Council then approved advertising for a full-time position in the public works department.

“The person in question was a temporary employee. So, if we had waited until another meeting, he would have worked another two weeks. So, it was time sensitive. Our solicitor advised us to do it this way,” Zweig said on Wednesday.

Efforts to reach Ashbaugh were unsuccessful.

Arnold solicitor David Regoli said that while he’s not authorized to comment on a personnel matter, council decided to hold the email vote on the matter rather than hold a special meeting.

“In an ideal situation, you want to have everything timed the right way so you can take all your actions at public meetings,” Regoli said. “There do come times, however, in between the monthly meetings, when an action is taken, and then you ratify it at the meeting.

“Someone could have said ‘no.’ They didn’t have to vote the same way I guess.”

Arnold Mayor Joe Bia said the email vote was legal because it had to do with a personnel issue.

“There are certain things that we’re allowed to do that do not violate the Sunshine Act,” Bia said.

Sunshine laws require certain proceedings of government agencies to be open or available to the public.

Melissa Melewsky, in-house counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said the fact that the vote to terminate the employee was ratified at a public meeting and doesn’t violate sunshine laws, doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.

“When these votes happen like this, outside of a public meeting, it excludes a critical part of the public meeting structure — the opportunity for meaningful public comment before votes take place,” said Melewsky. “The public is entitled to comment on all votes before they’re taken. They can’t do that when an agency follows a structure like this. It cuts the public out of the process and denies them their right to give input.”

Regoli said he couldn’t recall if Arnold City Council had ever decided a personnel issue in an email vote.

“There’s been other times when council has had to take action during the month in between the meetings when something couldn’t wait for one reason or another, and we’ve taken a phone vote and ratified it at the meeting. Yes, that’s happened before and it happens in other municipalities,” Regoli said.

Staff writer Madasyn Lee contributed to this story. Paul Guggenheimer is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Paul at 724-226-7706 or pguggenheimer@tribweb.com.