Marietta city employees will begin ethics and non-harrassment training by the end of the month, according to Mayor Michael Mullen who announced the training sessions during Thursday's Marietta City Council meeting.
The announcement comes on the heels of a recent sex scandal involving alleged on-duty affairs with a woman indicted on drug trafficking charges. The allegations resulted in the termination of a city firefighter and policeman as well as the demotion of a second city police officer.
Last month the mayor said while the majority of city employees make good decisions, there had been "lapses" that reflected negatively on city workers and therefore he planned to impose mandatory ethics training on all city employees.
"Wally Kandel and Grover Wallace of Solvay will provide the training," Mullen said Thursday. "This is comprehensive, professional training focused on issues like sexual harrassment, morals and ethics."
He said the administration is not equipped for such specialized training in-house, so the city is partnering with Kandel, plant manager, and Wallace, human resource manager from Solvay Advanced Polymers, LLC, to conduct the classes as a community service.
"We provide this type of training to our employees, both current and new employees coming on board, to make sure they're aware of issues and expectations related to ethics and harrassment as well as other topics," Kandel said in a written statement to the city.
"We will work with the city to tailor the training to their needs and hope the training we provide will be beneficial to all," Wallace added.
Mullen said he and assistant safety-service director Bill Dauber were working with the Solvay managers to develop a suitable curriculum that would mesh with guidelines from the city employee handbook and standards set by the Ohio Revised Code.
He said the training would begin with supervisors at the end of July, then expand to the other city employees in August.
In other business, six pieces of legislation were introduced, but no action was taken on those measures because two council members, Harley Noland, D-at large, and Randy Wilson, R-2nd Ward, could not attend Thursday's session and a vote of at least six members is required to suspend the rules and pass legislation on the first reading.
Among the legislation introduced Thursday was an ordinance authorizing bid advertisement and a contract for the rehabilitation of the Mound Cemetery fence; an ordinance amending the city truck route to eliminate truck traffic in the first two blocks of Front Street; an ordinance amending city code to include regulation of pedicabs; and a resolution to adopt the tax budget for fiscal 2010.
