Mayor To Aide: ​“Be Action-Driven”

“Do not be a sycophant.” Be more decisive. ​“Co-opt” new forms of media. Get your act together on IT.

That was some of the feedback Mayor John DeStefano and his chief of staff dished out to appointees in a round of performance evaluations.

The city’s top coordinators, department heads, and the mayor’s office staff — everyone who is considered ​“executive management and confidential employees” — each got annual performance reviews in a series of one-on-one meetings in January and February.

DeStefano evaluated the top coordinators. Mayoral Chief of Staff Sean Matteson reviewed his office staff. Top coordinators reviewed department heads.

The evaluations don’t reveal as much as they used to: After the city lost a Freedom of Information Commission case filed in 2004, it revised the evaluations to include less information. Workers are graded as ​“satisfactory” or ​“unsatisfactory,” and must simply initial that they have discussed various job categories.

But the evaluations still shed light on where the mayor aims to take the city in the next year, and how he thinks his top staff is performing.

The Independent reviewed 28 evaluations of top city staff. Supervisors often wrote comments on the forms to be discussed during the meeting. Workers all got a ​“satisfactory” rating — along with constructive criticism.

“I see that you are deliberative,” wrote DeStefano in an evaluation of Chisara Asomugha (pictured above), the pediatrician he hired in August to replace departing social services chief Kica Matos.

“You also need to be action-driven across an array of areas,” he told Asomugha.

He pointed to 10 priorities for the job, starting with youth services and ​“anti-violence” and ending with infant mortality.

“Anytime you have a new worker, you need to get the lay of the land before moving forward,” responded Asomugha in an interview Wednesday.

In other evaluations, DeStefano and Matteson sprinkled praise, encouragement and gratitude in with some blunt feedback.

“Do not be a sycophant,” Matteson wrote to his then-deputy chief of staff, Laoise King (pictured).

“That’s something I say to a lot of people” in the mayor’s office, Matteson clarified Wednesday. ​“I expect if someone doesn’t agree, to get honest feedback. I expect to be challenged.”

In his evaluation, Matteson urged King to ​“think bolder and bigger when it comes to policy” and to ​“challenge conventional thinking.”

He wrote that her strengths are ​“too many to list,” and she’s ready for a new job with more challenges. Sure enough, she got tapped later that month to lead the public relations arm of the school reform drive.

DeStefano gave Reggie Mayo (pictured), his longtime superintendent of schools, high praise and high expectations for how he runs the city’s $300 million-plus school system. Here’s how he fared:

Job Knowledge: ​“Excellent — and still learning. Continue to be open to new things.”

Quality of Work: ​“Very good. And now we are in the business of picking up the game of everyone around you.”

Departmental Initiatives and Achievement: ​“Outstanding for 2009. In 2010 we must make it happen — we only get one chance.”

Mayo got a mixed review on how he deals with others, with an apparent reference to rocky relations with an outspoken parent advocacy group.

Customer Service: ​“You are a master (with one exception that comes to mind). I do look forward to engaging parents, improving communications acting on engaging more third parties as part of the School Change Initiative,” DeStefano wrote.

Click here to read the evaluation.

For city spokeswoman Jessica Mayorga, Matteson laid out these goals for the year to come:

• ​“Search out new forms of mass media and co-opt them for purposes of messaging.”
• ​“More positive human interest media that tells the story of a workforce doing more with less.”
• ​“Delegate more.”
• ​“Have fun with the job.”

Matteson himself was evaluated by the mayor. He got this feedback: ​“You are very good and you are aware of the importance of supporting weak performances that occasionally occur elsewhere.”

The mayor added a pitch for his hard-working aide, who has two young sons: ​“Take time off, if for no other reason, the boys.”

“What do you think you could do to be more personally visible in the City?” DeStefano asked Kelly Murphy (pictured), the city’s economic development chief.

“I have complete confidence in you,” he declared when grading her job knowledge. He enlisted her help in changing the work environment of her department: ​“Get the team to focus on some little things — punctuality, not always working on the Blackberry in meeting, small stuff.”

DeStefano had these words of praise for Craig Manemeit, the city’s new labor relations negotiator: ​“Strikes just the balance between the legal and fiduciary responsibility to the City while not being anti-worker.”

Other evaluations gave hints at where the mayor would like to lead the city in terms of policy.

An Information Technology Push

DeStefano told Mark Pietrosimone, the city controller, that his departmental initiatives are ​“all very good” — except for in one area.

“The IT office continues to trouble me,” DeStefano wrote. ​“Recognizing the constraints of our operation, but nonetheless I have this nagging sense that we should be doing more in a host of areas.”

Along that vein, the mayor asked Chief Administrative Officer Rob Smuts about a fizzled attempt to get New Haveners to use a new municipal information hotline called 311. The program was rolled out two years ago by the mayor’s office as a way to lodge complaints with the city, and for the city to track how quickly city workers address the complaints. The program has kept a very low profile. New Haveners flocked instead to a more interactive, transparent counterpart called SeeClickFix. Instead of directing people to 311, neighborhood activists more commonly refer folks to SeeClickFix, which is monitored by police and several departments, often with quick responses.

“What happened to 311 and the secret shopper?” DeStefano asked Smuts on his evaluation form. ​“How do we measure customer satisfaction across the city?”

Shortly after the meeting, an announcement appeared on the city website promoting 311 again.

Another policy direction is hinted at in a review of Nichole Jefferson (pictured), head of the city’s Commission on Equal Opportunity. Jefferson’s office enforces City Ordinance 12 1/2, which lays down requirements for hiring residents, minorities and women on city construction jobs.

Jefferson’s work was reviewed by economic development chief Murphy, who applauded her for doing ​“excellent” work with a shrinking staff. In his State of the City speech, DeStefano said the CEO is the only department for which he’ll seek additional funding in his upcoming budget, which he’ll unveil on March 1.

In her evaluation, Murphy directed Jefferson to submit an amendment to the ordinance ​“to increase participation” in the CEO program, which trains workers to prepare for city-related construction jobs.

Murphy gave transportation czar Mike Piscitelli this objective for the upcoming year: ​“work to implement the Street Smarts manual in future infrastructure improvements.”

City budget chief Larry Rusconi (pictured) got high marks across the board from the mayor. DeStefano thanked him and acknowledged his job has not been easy in a national financial meltdown.

“You help me to sleep at night,” the mayor wrote, ​“even if you don’t.”