In February, the Hamtramck City Council took a vote that would have allowed officials to begin negotiating a contract expansion for City Manager Katrina Powell. Instead the vote became a source of tension among municipal officials.
Eli Newman – Hamtramck – The Yemeni American News
Councilmembers Saad Almasmari, Abu Musa, Mohammed Hassan and Anam Miah voted against the resolution, a majority decision that rejected Powell’s employment by the city. Councilmembers Ian Perrotta, Andrea Karpinski and Mayor Karen Majewski voted in favor of the resolution. After the motion failed to pass, the divided council began exchanging insults. Some of the councilmembers who voted against the resolution abruptly left.
Powell was hired by former Hamtramck Emergency Manager Cathy Square in 2014, shortly before the state declared the financial emergency over and appointed a Receivership Transition Advisory Board (RTAB). Since becoming city manager, Powell has been credited with maintaining a $2 million budget surplus two years in a row by amending services and going after delinquent taxes and water bills. Powell has the support of Mayor Karen Majewski. “We have major infrastructure projects going on here that should have been done 50 years ago,” Majewski said. “She has done the things that a city manager is supposed to do: get us better services at less costs. She has done that consistently in the two years she’s been here.”
But some of the councilmembers who voted against renewing Powell’s contract said the city manager does not play well with others, including other members of Hamtramck’s municipal government. “She was not communicating with our councilmembers about making decisions,” said Councilman Saad Almasmari. “She was hiring and firing people without telling us. It was on the emergency manager’s order that she has the authority to do such a thing, but she has to come to us for our opinions. She was making major decisions in the city without going back to us.”
In addition to issues of transparency and communication, Almasmari alleged Powell is a poor administrator. “She was accused by councilmembers that she was not a good city manager because Hamtramck City Police Department received four lawsuits in 2016 and we paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for those lawsuits.”
Councilman Anam Miah did not respond to requests for an interview by the Yemeni-American News. But in an open letter published by The Hamtramck Review in December, 2015, Miah criticized Powell after she appointed Police Chief Anne Moise. “I won’t sit silently and wait to find out when it really counts whether you hired the right person to lead our police department,” Miah wrote. “At the very least, you owe council an explanation about your search and, if none was conducted, tell us why you made that decision and according to what objective criteria.”
Not everyone on Council agreed. Councilman Ian Perrotta said Powell’s actions have been well within her authority. “We have the opportunity to voice our concerns, but some of the decisions that she makes, she’s able to make unilaterally as a function of the city manager and under the directive of the [emergency management law],” Perrotta said. “While I agree that we could have a little more notice, I would say that the decisions that she makes are hers to make and the ones that require us to sign off on them, we have signed off of. At least for myself, I have agreed with the decisions that were made.”
So has Majewski. She said the votes against Powell had less to do with her job performance than the personal relationships, political grandstanding and gender roles she contended play out on the council. “Frankly, I think part of it has to do with the fact that she’s a woman in that position,” Majewski said. “I’ve seen the same council people go after the city manager, go after the police chief, who is a woman, go after the city planner, who is a woman. It’s been a consistent pattern in their criticism of management team in City Hall.”
For her part, Powell disagreed that the vote had to do with her gender. “I’m one of very few females who have been asked to speak in the mosques,” said Powell. “I’ve been invited to speak at the Friday afternoon prayer, that’s when the most people are attending. For me, that’s a huge honor. If I were not respected in this community, I would not have been asked to do that.”
But Powell contended that terminating her contract could become a lengthy and expensive proposition. At the last month’s Hamtramck RTAB, Snyder Administration officials sent out a statement reminding those present that the State Treasurer has the authority to amend the terms of the city’s emergency loan to require a higher interest rate if Hamtramck fails to have a city manager under contract. Powell, whose contract expires on June 30th, said that could be a major problem for Hamtramck. “This means that if you take $2 million from the fund balance that we’ve saved up, you’re right back to the emergency manager stage.” Powell said it was a six-month process for the city to establish her position, not including the drawn out search and multiple attempts to fill the job. Hamtramck City charter requires candidates to have “a minimum of three years experience as a city manager or assistant city manager in a city with a population of at least 10,000, and that the candidate shall be a member of a professional city or county manager association.” Ultimately, Powell said, the RTAB has final authority on the decisions within the parameters of the law.
For now, Powell may have to look elsewhere for work. “It’s a matter of me applying for other jobs,” Powell said. “I love Hamtramck. I picked up my entire life in Florida and moved to Michigan. Not a lot of people would do that, but I love this community. I would certainly consider the opportunity to negotiate an extension of my contract.”
