City of North Las Vegas wants to dump ‘integrity’ from core values
The City of North Las Vegas wants to eliminate integrity from its core values.
Also on their way out: Respect, creativity, quality service and leadership.
The move to edit the city’s statement of core values was a suggestion of an employee committee that determined the seven-word statement of core values was too long, according to an email sent Wednesday to city workers by City Manager Qiong Liu.
If the City Council agrees, the city’s core values would be limited to accountability, communication and teamwork. A vote is expected in June.
Some workers in the city, which has been flirting with insolvency for years, said they’ll miss being respectful and having integrity, in particular.
“I myself like our old CORE VALUES better, what happened to “Respect” & Integrity?” Backflow Technician Roy Fabila said in a reply-all response to the city manager’s email.
Others said they’ll still value leadership, show respect and practice integrity no matter what the boss says.
“I agree with Roy. Teamwork and Communication skills are built on Respect and Integrity! I intend to keep them in my personal “Core Values”, whether the City Council approves the change or not,” Office Assistant Rita Davies emailed in response.
One of the three surviving core values — teamwork — has actually become a divisive term around City Hall.
Current and former employees say the phrase “being on the team” is used as a threat. The phrase came up in ethics complaints recently filed by two longtime human resources employees who say Mayor John Lee has created a culture of fear and favoritism since he took office in July 2013.
Those viewed as “not on the team” face intimidation, humiliation and eventual termination, employees say.
The proposal to streamline the city’s core values came out of a survey of employees last October. That survey of more than 600 employees found that 32 percent didn’t know all seven core values.
The same survey showed city employees might be lacking in self-esteem.
When asked to respond to the statement “The City has a positive image to my friends and family,” 36 percent said “disagree,” and 26 percent clicked “strongly disagree.”
And when asked if they felt the city cares about them, only 31 percent said yes, with 46 percent disagreeing and 22 percent selecting “neither.”
The survey also gave a grim assessment of the city’s success in meeting its core value of “teamwork.”
Asked to respond to the statement that “There is good team spirit at work,” 22 percent said they disagreed and 20 percent said they strongly disagreed. Seventeen percent responded “neither.”
No changes have yet been finalized, said city spokesman Mitch Fox.
“An 11 member employee committee came up with these proposed values and the City Manager sent out an email in hopes of gathering input from employees who weren’t on the committee,” he said. “We look forward to more comments from staff. “
Contact Bethany Barnes at bbarnes@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861. Find her on Twitter: @betsbarnes
