COLLINS SETS ASIDE RETIREMENT PLANS -- OR DOES HE?
Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com
By Michael Horne
and The MilwaukeeWorld Hound Dog Team
The City of Milwaukee Common Council will vote tomorrow, Tuesday, June 10th, 2008, on Mayor Barrett's reappointment of Martin G. Collins as Commissioner of Building Inspection [File 080057]. However, an April 7th, 2008 letter Collins sent to the Department of Neighborhood Services mailing list and cc'd to others, said, "Last Monday [March 31st, 2008] I informed the Mayor's office of my intent to retire shortly after my birthday in October. I was asked to hold off on announcing this until today. I will be working with the Mayor to select my successor.
"There are a number of regulatory changes that I would like to see enacted before I leave so I plan on being busy until I start burning up my vacation sometime in August." [Emphasis added.--Ed.]
Collins goes on to say, "I am considering a role of private activism in public policy matters. Some landlords who currently do this have inspired me to do similar things, but with a different agenda, so some of them should not be too quick to celebrate my departure from this position. Stay tuned for more details to follow as the date gets closer!"
Apparently something happened between March 31st and April 10th, when the mayor announced the reappointment of Collins. Perhaps the reappointment is simply a provisional matter that will keep Collins on the payroll building up more vacation time for later combustion. [Neither the mayor or Collins responded to a request for comment.]
But read this sentence from the "retirement letter" of April 7th:
"As many of you know, I had planned on postponing my decision on retirement until I had a better read on how much longer my wife's biotechnology research needed to continue before she could retire.
"However, I have realized that it would be unfair and inappropriate for me to accept a reappointment and then to announce my decision to retire a month later." [More emphasis added. --Ed.]
I guess we'll just have to see about that! Let's call Marty sometime in August to see if he's burning up his vacation hours, or if he's busy "creating regulatory changes" that will assist his future "private activism in public policy matters." Sounds like a City Hall screw-up with a little Stonewalling thrown it.
What's Your Take?
posted by Michael Horne @ 11:20 AM
5 comments
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5 Comments:
Mr. Collins is the source of one of my all-time favorite quotes:
"Ugly is not a code violation."
I watched his re-appointment and he will only be active for a few more months. All the Alderman thanked him and he spoke of his upcoming retirement.
Mikey, how does it feel to have gotten destroyed on Chuckie Hacks yesterday? Pathetic hayseed.
Mr. Collins has done a great deal to create new tools to halt neighborhood decay, and e-notify is a very important one. Still, it looks like he wound up doing just what he said he would not -- announce his reappointment, only to announce his retirement. It makes it look like he, not Barrett, is in charge. Also, I'm not exactly certain how it is that commissioners have accumulated vacation time to "burn up," and this seems like a very big piece of the puzzle.
Hi Michael! It was good to speak to you at my retirement party. The reason I have so much vacation is because of what is known as a Transitional Vacation Account. It allowed employees to freeze their balance when the vacation accounting system was changed in the late 80's. I had 212 hours in it at the time. Add that to the 300 + hours I have in my current vacation account and you can do the math, just as our payroll clerk did.
I had to be reapponted within a certain number of days of the election I was told so that is why I was reappointed and then retired. No big mystery
Marty Collins
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