OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Personnel Committee Meeting Summary - May 18, 2026

Board of RepresentativesMonday, May 18, 2026
BodyStamford, Connecticut
SessionBoard of Representatives
DateMonday, May 18, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 43:11
Transcript — Verbatim
0:00

Um so uh I see uh present um committee members Virgil De la Cruz Theo Gross, uh Bobby Pavia, Maureen Pollack, Ricardo Salas, myself, Carl Weinberg.

0:19

That's uh six out of seven.

0:21

I therefore declare a quorum.

0:23

It is 702 p.m.

0:26

on Monday, May 18th.

0:29

Uh this is a meeting of this Stanford Board of Representative Personnel Committee.

0:35

Welcome.

0:36

Uh I don't see Angie, I don't see anybody else from the committee from the board.

0:43

Um present to you.

0:47

No, I don't.

0:48

Okay, great.

0:50

Then we're going to plow forward.

0:53

We have one item on the agenda tonight.

0:57

It is P32.

0:59

I will actually there are two items uh on the printed agenda.

1:03

The first is P 32.009, approval of an employee employment contract for uh for a diversity equity inclusion officer.

1:13

Uh that one is being held at the request of uh of the mayor's office.

1:19

So we will move to item number two, p32.010, approval of a clerk of the works to contract with Mr.

1:30

Alan Hoyt.

1:32

Um and I see uh first I'll entertain a motion to approve.

1:40

So thank you.

1:41

Um motion by Representative Gross.

1:44

Is there a second?

1:47

Seconded by uh Representative Salas, and I will turn it over to our guest, City Engineer Lou Castle.

1:57

Lou, thank you for joining us.

1:59

And uh you have the floor.

2:02

Uh good good evening, Lou Castleau, City Engineer.

2:05

Um, Lou, I think you're frozen.

2:20

Um, with the city of Stanford.

2:23

Yeah, Lou.

2:24

Yes.

2:24

I'm sorry, but as soon as you said hi, Lou Castle, City Engineer.

2:30

Um you you froze, so we didn't hear anything that you said it thereafter.

2:36

And it appears that you're frozen again.

2:42

So, Lou, can you hear me?

2:44

If you can hear me, please raise your hand.

2:48

I think that is a no.

2:52

Um looks like it's on his hands.

2:57

Yeah.

3:00

I'm gonna try to call him if I've got his number.

3:04

Someone else is online and can look up his number on the city website.

3:13

But I don't know if he's in his office.

3:26

No, we don't have it.

3:29

Lou, you are unfortunately still frozen.

3:36

Uh that's probably the only one we got, right?

3:39

Oh, he drops.

3:41

Oh, okay.

3:43

Let me call it just in case 203.

3:45

977 5796.

3:52

Look like he was home, that's a little much.

3:54

Yeah, it did look like he was on.

3:58

And is Bobby gone too?

4:02

Yeah.

4:02

No, I'm here, Carl.

4:04

Okay, great.

4:05

Okay.

4:06

So Virgil, Maureen, Bobby, uh, the loss back.

4:10

Lou, can you hear us?

4:12

Yes, I can.

4:13

Uh, I apologize, uh, internet.

4:16

Everything you said after uh Lou Castle, City Engineer.

4:21

Well, we we couldn't hear.

4:24

Oh, okay.

4:24

Are you ready for me to resume?

4:26

We're looking forward to it.

4:28

Okay, I'm sorry, my internet went out for a minute, and I apologize.

4:32

Uh, Lou Castle, City Engineer.

4:34

Uh, as the chair mentioned, I'm here to present an employment contract for clerk of the Works two um this evening.

4:41

Uh my request comes um to you because I need to maintain project oversight on numerous capital projects.

4:49

Um, and uh for those that may have uh be new to to employment contracts related to contract positions, this contract comes to you with a list of capital project numbers.

4:59

Those are the numbers by which the clerk will be billed.

5:07

They keep weekly timesheets by hours, and they get paid their hourly employees, and they have an hourly rate.

5:15

That brings me to the portion of the contract for the hourly rate for this position.

5:20

For this position, the amount of the contract is 40, go to that section, 43.15 cents an hour.

5:30

And that is the minimum.

5:33

That is the minimum rate offered through the uh the clerk of the works uh pay plan.

5:39

Um so that's for uh a 37 and a half hour work week.

5:44

Um so back to the projects.

5:47

There's a on the on the front sheet, there's a a list of many different projects.

5:52

Uh these are projects that are um all uh in various different processes.

5:58

Uh for example, the West Hill High School Project and Roxbury School Project Replacements are active uh as well as many others.

6:06

Um so it this gives me the uh flexibility to uh move people around uh based on uh people's availability um and expertise.

6:18

Uh tonight's contract is for the uh individual Al Hoyt.

6:23

Uh Al comes to um uh to us.

6:31

Lou, it's happened again.

6:40

Uh where he was the custodian of the facility.

6:44

Um very uh impressive individual, uh very energetic, hardworking, uh Stanford resident.

6:52

Um he knows a lot about the school systems.

6:55

He's um also had uh a few other jobs where he was um doing light construction work so he understands the construction uh trades and how to interface with people um on the large on any school construction project, it's really important that the city maintain good relationships with the school's administration and their custodial staff, so he is perfect for that.

7:23

Um we often work in occupied school buildings, and in that that is the case of West Hill and Roxbury.

7:30

Although we're building uh large schools um outside of the existing school, there's still interface with the uh administration because it will be an active campus.

7:41

Uh you know, of course, separated by fencing and different parking areas and such, but there's still going to be a lot of interface.

7:48

Uh and there'll be uh Lou, you're frozen again.

8:03

Yes, so if there are any questions about the uh the contract or the candidate, um feel free to ask.

8:10

Um but I'm at this time seeking your approval of this employment contract.

8:18

Okay.

8:19

Uh who has a question for uh uh for uh uh for Lou Castle?

8:27

Who on the committee?

8:32

Uh Representative Purse.

8:34

Uh Lou, you cut out a little bit at the end if you could sort of repeat what you're what you were sort of concluding with.

8:41

Uh yes, I just wanted to I'm sorry, can you hear me okay now?

8:46

Yes.

8:47

Okay.

8:47

Um so again, this is a clerk of the works contract, it's an hourly contract.

8:53

The contract comes um basically at a three year term, and um we um if if projects were to change within the contract over time, I do uh reissue uh the board's new information uh as that occurs, but we have quite a bit.

9:21

Angie, can you hear us?

9:24

Yes, I can hear you.

9:26

Uh uh help the board of excuse me, Lou, I take it this problem is on on Lou's end, not ours.

9:31

Is that correct?

9:33

Maybe what I'll do, Chair is just uh suppress the video to give me a little bit more bandwidth, if that's okay.

9:40

Okay.

9:29

Um seeing you.

9:44

We can hear you.

9:46

So yes, so um, so we help the board of ed uh manage their administrate their capital program as well as on the city side.

9:55

Uh we serve uh to all as all departments within the city.

10:00

That's like the parks department, health department, other departments that do uh projects outside agencies.

10:06

Um, and I listed the projects here that I anticipate working with Al uh directly on.

10:12

Uh as you can see, there are many school construction projects, there's some parks projects, and we even have a fairly large library project going on at the Ferguson currently.

10:22

So at this time, um, you've cut on you've cut out again.

10:36

Yeah, he's doing this over.

10:38

So um seeking your approval of this employment contract.

10:44

Can you hear me?

10:45

Yeah, yeah, why don't you take the turn of it turn the camera off again?

10:49

Let's see if that maximizes the transmission.

10:59

Yeah, Lou, you know.

11:02

Can you hear me?

11:03

Yeah, we can hear you.

11:05

Yes, sir.

11:06

Why don't you turn off the the it seemed to be better for a while with the video off?

11:16

So why don't you turn off your camera again?

11:19

Perhaps you can call in on his phone.

11:23

Am I back with you?

11:24

I will call in if you're having a hard time.

11:27

Okay, so okay.

11:33

Because I think there are a couple couple of additional questions.

11:36

Go ahead.

11:36

I'm right here.

11:37

I'm listening.

11:38

Okay.

11:39

Uh who else on the committee has a question?

11:41

Can I continue?

11:42

Yeah, please.

11:43

Um, Lou, if you if you can hear me.

11:46

Um could you just speak a little bit about um the role of the clerk of the works on these various projects?

11:55

Yes.

11:56

So the clerks are really my eyes and ears in the field uh during construction.

12:02

They also do pre-construction work by reviewing plans and specifications uh either before bid or during design.

12:12

Um but mainly they're they're field personnel.

12:14

They're people that um will be on the on the job sites daily, uh monitoring construction, monitoring uh workforce, monitoring you know, safety conditions and coordination with other users of the facility to make sure that things go as smoothly as possible.

12:33

They report directly to project managers within my office or construction managers.

12:39

These are the either the architects or the licensed engineers actually responsible for doing the project management.

12:46

And so they report back to them uh daily to keep tabs on on how the projects are going.

12:52

They attend job meetings with the project managers to stay ahead of what's going on.

12:56

And if anything happens, uh the the manpower seems low on the job, things seem to be slipping, the schedule seems to be uh not progressing.

13:05

They're the first persons that will give us a heads up uh as to what's happening in the field so we can make corrective action on our end with either the construction, you know, the contractors or or anyone else involved in the project.

13:20

Thank you.

13:21

That that all makes sense.

13:22

Um I know uh Mr.

13:25

Hoy has he seems to have a lot of uh supervisory and sort of managerial experience on his previous roles.

13:32

Um, it doesn't seem like he's necessarily manage like such construction projects as he would in this role.

13:39

I don't know if you could sort of speak to that.

13:42

Yes.

13:43

Um Mr.

13:45

Hoyt has um been a head custodian.

13:49

He's been in buildings where I've done major renovations to projects, so he he has an understanding of what's required uh in terms of of construction and the kind of uh activities that take place.

14:02

He would be working under the direction of a construction manager for guidance.

14:07

Mr.

14:08

Hoyt has also been involved with some small construction as a handyman and other types of projects over his career.

14:17

So I feel as though he has the ability to understand the work that's going on.

14:25

And coordinate the work with the various parties on the job site.

14:32

A lot of times the work has to be uh testing has to be done by outside testing agencies, they need to coordinate times with the contractors.

14:41

So there's a lot of administrative work that goes along with the construction as well.

14:46

And he's there to make sure people have access to locations on the construction site.

14:51

Um he'll be there first thing in the morning.

14:54

Uh uh and probably there as people are leaving the site.

14:58

So he will be also responsible for making sure the site is secure and and safe for for people that are in and around the site.

15:06

So, in addition to the oversight of construction, there's a lot of administrative chores here that are important to keep the job moving.

15:14

That my people, we just don't have the staff to be out there to monitor that.

15:17

So that will become his responsibility as it is the responsibility of others.

15:23

I should also mention uh currently I have four full-time uh clerk of the works that report to me.

15:29

Uh Al would become the fifth full-time clerk of the works.

15:33

Uh I also have two other gentlemen that are part-time.

15:36

Um, but since it's an hourly contract, I can give these people the flexibility of working uh part-time.

15:44

The type of people that are attracted to this work are people it doesn't have any benefits that come with it.

15:49

Um they did they just are hourly employees, and uh normally the the type of uh individual that uh this works for people like Al, former people in the school system.

16:02

I have a couple of uh tradespeople from the Board of Ed, uh former electrician, uh former plumber, um, and also I have some other contract people that were formerly contractors uh that did build and construction work as well.

16:18

Uh I also have um an architect as uh as a third.

16:23

Oh, did I lose you guys again?

16:24

I hope not.

16:25

There you go, we got you here, okay, great.

16:29

Um, so I have a a fairly robust group, but not many people.

16:33

This would be the fifth full-time clerk that I have, and we have uh numerous projects going on and throughout the city that really do require uh day-to-day field coverage.

16:46

Thank you, yeah.

16:47

That um that testimony is definitely very reassuring.

16:50

Um, and I'm just sort of I obviously he's sort of assigned to a lot of different projects going on around the city.

16:56

Um I guess does he is he going to split his time on these different projects, or what's the sort of breakdown going to be across the projects?

17:05

The breakdown across the projects is um uh for him.

17:10

Uh we have major school construction projects going on, some of the largest that Stanford has ever had.

17:15

So we have to have multiple people looking at multiple different things uh across many different school sites, um, and uh so we have the West Hill replacement project, the Roxbury replacement project.

17:28

West Hill has actually gone to full construction uh this summer.

17:32

Uh we had a uh uh uh a phase one, which built that hall road that went into the site that was an early action project.

17:40

Roxbury's gonna have the same this summer where we're gonna ready the site for the fall.

17:45

So we're at the process now of uh uh posting trees.

17:50

This was something that came up on Friday after we posted the trees.

17:54

There was feedback that you know, some people had concerns about that.

17:57

So we had to send people out into the field and meet with people and the tree warden.

18:01

So these are jobs that you know require a lot of coordination, and they do take time, because they're all sensitive.

18:08

Um, aside from that, we have a bathroom renovation that's going to be starting uh at the end of the summer at Davenport Ridge.

18:15

Uh, we also have a Stanford High School plaster ceiling and floor replacement.

18:25

Lou, you you're you're frozen again, I think.

18:33

Soccer field at Stanford High, the Turf, and also the soccer field at West Hill High School.

18:28

That's the front field.

18:41

We're doing a floor replacement uh over at Springdale the following summer.

18:46

Um, and we're also going to be uh we're heavily into design now of the South Schools.

18:51

That's the replacement of Lockwood and KT Murphy.

18:55

Um we have ongoing projects at Cummings Park where we have some playground work going on.

19:01

Uh we're also doing another phase of work at John Bakutzi Park, and as I said earlier, we're doing a library HVAC replacement project at the Ferguson.

19:11

These are all projects, this individual.

19:15

I'm sort of wondering like among all the clerks that you have, how are you going to sort of give them up across each of these projects if they're you know going on simultaneously?

19:24

That's sort of what I want to say.

19:25

Right.

19:25

So we we do have we do allocate.

19:33

Lou, we've we've lost the audio again.

19:39

This is like the final episode of the Sopranos.

19:42

We have we have other clerks that that are very familiar with our school system.

19:52

Sorry, Lou, you cut out for most of that.

20:03

And we also have uh yes, you've been you've been you've been cutting in and out, so we've missed pretty much your whole answer to uh uh to Theo's most recent question.

20:22

I'm sorry, Carl.

20:24

Uh you were I only picked up a few of those words.

20:29

Yeah, very very little in answer to Theo's uh one.

20:32

Theo, if you can, could you ask a question again?

20:36

Yeah, do you want to hang up and call back in?

20:38

You're you're using a you're you're you're using a cell phone to get into this meeting, is that correct?

20:47

Well, I can hear you now, so we can communicate by the computer.

20:51

Okay.

20:52

Yeah, I was just wondering how, you know, you have, I guess this would be your fifth full-term full-time clerk, and you have two part-time.

21:01

I just how would you how are they going to be divvyed up among these various projects going on around the city?

21:07

Right.

21:08

So they're they're divvyed up based on uh need, what's active, what's not active.

21:14

They're also assigned based on the background of the individual.

21:18

Uh we have one uh uh former board of ed tradesman, uh electrician, so he does a lot of the board of ed security projects.

21:27

We're building um different security vestibules throughout the school, so he's always involved in electrical projects.

21:34

We have another contractor who used to work for Rosso Construction, so he's a site contractor, so he's assigned mainly to things like when we built the access road to West Hill, doing grading, paving, um, uh those type of projects.

21:49

Uh we have another gentleman that's assigned to our Stanford Animal Shelter.

21:53

Uh he was a general contractor, so he's following all the trades over at the animal shelter facility.

22:00

And we have an architect who's kind of who does both, both field construction oversight and also plan review.

22:07

So uh and we have a mechanical uh individual who is doing a number of mechanical jobs both on the city side and uh for the Board of Education.

22:16

Um so Al is a perfect uh candidate to fit into the projects that we've listed here for the various school projects and both current and upcoming projects over the next year.

22:31

Okay, we have coverage over all projects that we're doing.

22:36

Okay, thank you.

22:37

Thank you so much, Lou.

22:38

Thank you.

22:39

You're welcome.

22:39

Thanks.

22:41

So I I see two hands up, Representative Pavia and Representative Dana Cruz.

22:47

Bobby, you had your hand up first.

22:49

Uh so uh you'll have the floor, and then we'll turn it over to Virgil.

22:55

Bobby, you have the floor.

22:56

Thank you, Chair.

22:57

Um actually, uh Lou, you answered a lot of my questions and uh Theo asked a lot of my questions to uh basically how many clerks do you have out there and how do you um uh spread them out?

22:59

I guess like just to um go down to that question a little bit more.

23:16

Would there be like more than one clerk on one given project?

23:21

Like let's take West Hill, for example.

23:23

Yes.

23:24

Uh West Hill, just to give you an idea.

23:27

Um Lou, you're you're frozen again.

23:32

I think it's better without the video.

23:41

One clerk assigned at any one time based on the amount of work that's taking place.

23:46

Can you hear me?

23:48

Can you hear me?

23:51

Yes.

23:52

Okay.

23:53

Yeah, if you can keep the video off, you seem to have you seem to have better luck without the video.

23:59

And if you don't mind, Lou, you cut off at the beginning of that.

24:02

Would you mind like going back and uh restating what you said?

24:06

Yes, so there it's very possible that we would have more than one clerk on one capital project for two reasons.

24:14

Reason number one is the size of the project.

24:17

For example, Westfill High School has four project superintendents on the construction side, so there's many activities happening at once, and that's a 350 million dollar project.

24:27

So it's very possible that there would be more than one clerk on that project for that for that reason.

24:33

The other uh Lou, you you've cut it your vocal, your uh uh audio has cut off again.

24:47

One time.

24:48

Uh the other reason would be the district-wide accounts.

24:52

The district wide accounts um, for example, could be multiple projects throughout the city.

24:58

For example, district wide paving and resurfacing.

25:01

You know, we could have multiple paving projects going on, which would require more than one clerk on the project.

25:09

Okay, um, we recently voted um for a PLA for one of the projects.

25:17

One of your clerks be on that.

25:20

The PLA is a project labor agreement uh that's basically tied to union trades.

25:26

So yes, uh the clerk would be on the project, for example.

25:30

Uh I believe that was Roxbury School.

25:32

Uh Roxbury has a project labor agreement, and that's just a requirement that the contractor retain union labor.

25:40

Um, but again, our our position would be we have to have someone on site watching the work, um, not only to monitor, you know, progress, but also the other things like coordinating with the administration of the school, keeping things safe, um, and also helping us monitor um progress because we're the ones that are going to be getting the invoices, and my office doesn't just blanketly sign an invoice.

26:08

Uh we review them very carefully, we review them against the percent complete, uh, the schedule of values.

26:14

So all of those things are um heavily monitored before we sign off on the payments.

26:21

Well, that's good.

26:22

Um, but your your clerks um are they classified?

26:27

Forgive me for not knowing that off the top of my head.

26:30

Um, I don't know.

26:31

Uh could you uh classify it?

26:33

I don't know what you mean.

26:34

Uh sorry, I mean uh are they unionized?

26:37

Uh no, they're not.

26:38

They're just they're just uh at-will employees.

26:41

Gotcha.

26:42

Well, if I could, Bobby.

26:43

If I could interject for just a moment, yeah.

26:46

Um so the PLA is an agreement between uh the trade union and the city.

26:55

Um so it it involves um people who work for the trade union, work through the trade, through the contractors.

27:04

Really, I'm sorry, it's um with the contractors in the and the uh and the city.

27:10

So it involves people who work for the contractors.

27:14

Uh the clerk of the works is a city employee, so they're completely out of the PLA game.

27:20

Have no relevance to it.

27:22

Got you.

27:23

That was my understanding, but thank you for clearing that up.

27:25

Yeah.

27:26

Okay.

27:28

Well, thank you, Luke.

27:27

I think that's all I got.

27:27

Uh thank you.

27:32

Thank you, Carl.

27:33

Representative Pavia.

27:29

Okay, thank you.

27:36

Representative Taylor Cruz.

27:29

Thank you.

27:42

Uh hi Lu.

27:29

Uh good evening.

27:44

Good evening, Virgil.

27:46

Uh, from the discussion, I've learned that you have many clerk of the works.

27:54

Actually, how many clerk of the works do you have?

27:58

Um, I don't have all that many.

28:00

Um, I have four full-time clerk of the works and two part-time.

28:06

There was a time um, I don't know, maybe 10 12 years ago where I had 11.

28:12

So I am staffing, I'm trying to staff up to maintain uh oversight of the project workload that is currently before us.

28:21

So uh, you know, I'm gonna continue.

28:28

Lou, we've lost the audio again.

28:40

Uh Lou, we've lost the audio again.

28:43

Okay, um, very apologize, but there's nothing I can do to control my internet.

28:49

It's usually fine, but tonight it seems to be on the fritz.

28:52

Can you hear me now?

28:54

Yes, yes, we can.

28:56

Okay.

28:56

Okay, Lou, so you only have six clerks of the work for all those projects that you recited.

29:06

Very important, very time consuming, very important work that these six clerks do.

29:16

What has been the turnover in your clerks of the work staff?

29:22

Um the turnover is either they've gone on to uh other uh full-time employment opportunities with benefits.

29:30

Some of the some of the folks in their 30s and the 40s have done that.

29:34

Uh they've ended up having pretty successful uh careers with the gas company.

29:39

Uh several people have gone into private construction.

29:43

Um others have uh either retired, uh, some have actually passed away.

29:48

Um so over the years, uh a number of different things have happened, but I recognize the need and I do continue to build the program, and uh that's why I'm here tonight requesting your approval of this individual.

30:02

I see.

30:03

So you don't know whether it's 10 percent uh turnover or 20 percent or 15 percent.

30:11

Uh um, not offhand, I don't know that.

30:14

I see.

30:15

Well, uh my suggestion.

30:20

We have a lot of very demanding as you made it very clear projects ahead of us, and only six clerk of the works hardly seems enough to handle all that and the important thing like we do, like just verifying that the invoice are correct, and then it's just one little piece.

30:48

Absolutely, I agree with you.

30:50

Yes, so my suggestion, and also given how important these are for the success of the project, I think they should be full-time employees of the city, they are very valuable.

31:09

Uh so my suggestion is that you look into making this a more solid uh position, and that you probably need quite a few more than only six.

31:23

Yes, continue to look, and I interview all the time, and I'm looking for people that are uh going to be very uh much value to the organization, and uh currently I have another potential individual that I'm talking to now, so I agree with you 100%, and I continue to look.

31:43

Yes, I don't recall when was the last time you asked for a clerk of the work?

31:48

Um it was it was within about uh a year, year and a half, so yeah, long time ago.

31:55

Yeah, about a year, and um and the individual has turned out to be uh both of them have there were two individuals and they they've turned out to be remarkable employees and I'm so since the beginning of the second board contribution didn't we didn't approve a haven we approved a clerk of the works a candidate all already a contract for another clerk of the works contract it could be for another department but for me the last two were uh Anna Rabinowitz and Michael Sapita okay yes I don't recall I mean it was a long time ago so my suggestion is uh to beef off that staff with permanent employees because they do too much too important working at what we have ahead of those in terms of consortium projects and with that chair I yield and thank you Louis thank you for the reports thank you representative day lacruz I have a few questions but before I ask them um are there other questions from from the committee uh I don't see any uh angie there are no other uh representatives on this week correct no other okay great so a couple couple of questions Lou um so Mr.

33:25

Hoyt is a is a retired employee of the Stanford Public Schools so uh presumably he is um receiving a pension uh for his service and employment uh there um can you just confirm that uh if he's serving in this in this clerk of the works position that it will not change his pen pension benefit up or upper down it'll have no effect on his pension benefit that's my understanding but I'm just asking you to confirm that well all I can tell you is this is the contract position that doesn't have any benefits um I notice that I'm I'd have to do right but it doesn't add to his years of service or anything like that I've either confounded you or you're frozen again I think you cut out Carl.

34:27

Yeah uh what can you hear me now yes yes uh this is a position with no benefits and I would have to defer to HR to uh address your question at hand but I don't believe so I don't believe so either okay thank you second a lot of the contracts that we see uh you know of course for three years and then they have a year four and year five option um is it typical for a clerk of the works contract not to have this this contract as best as I could tell does not include a year four and year five option correct every every employment contract clerk of the works uh uh contracts or do other clerk of the work contracts include the the no they don't they're all they're all three year contract agreements um okay so there's nothing nothing unique no in that in that respect okay great and uh just going back to the the the quest the the concern that Virgil was a expressing a moment ago um over the last call it two years um how many clerk of the works incumbents in your department have left the city employment left the position Carl, I heard your question was over the past two years, and then you cut out.

36:05

Oh, I'm sorry.

36:06

So over the past two years, um, how many uh if any uh incumbent clerk of the works in your department have um have vacated the position, have left um for the past two years.

36:28

No one.

36:29

Okay.

36:31

So the concern that the lack of benefits is creating a revolving door, at least that has not been the case recently.

36:42

It's obviously benefits play into things.

36:46

Um there are some people that uh it's very important.

36:50

There are others that it may not be important, as important because either their spouse has a is working and getting benefits, or in the case of Mr.

36:59

Hoyt, there may be some retirement benefits.

37:01

Um, or in the case of a younger individual, it could just be that they want to get a good start and a good foot in the door, um, but for many others, benefits is a is a stopping point.

37:13

So it it really depends.

37:15

So um but but it okay, but it hasn't it hasn't shown up in the in the in the retention results over the at least over the over the last couple of years.

37:29

Um yeah, I mean to my or they have to be back to my years on the personnel commission.

37:36

Most of the people who were high have been hired that I remember being hired for clerk of the works positions, were similar to Mr.

37:48

Hoyt, where they were they had a career um and because of retirement benefits that they already had, um, you know, the benefits issue was not as much of a game breaker as it would as it might have been for others.

38:09

It's um basically they were covered elsewhere.

38:13

Um that that is the that that is the case, but there are people that it does matter, and during the process, that's when I try to flush that out with Rose.

38:23

Uh, because people want to work in Stanford.

38:25

There's a lot of good work, a lot of great projects happening here.

38:27

They see the ad, they apply, and then we we basically tell them that it is a position uh without benefits, and uh and I'm really open with them because I want to know, I don't want to waste their time.

38:40

Um but with Mr.

38:42

Hoyt, this this was not a problem.

38:45

So you mentioned that you have another candidate in the pipeline.

38:51

Uh that you know who you're actively recruiting uh right now.

38:56

Um do you find that the that the pipeline you know when you advertise for you know post for clerk of the works um that you're able to attract um qualified applicants?

39:16

Uh it it depends uh on the market.

39:20

Uh I know that in the case of um some of the people I've interviewed, they're interviewing with multiple people.

39:27

Um so uh there are some good candidates out there.

39:31

Um, and there are, and you know, you've got to look carefully at their background because some there isn't a really good fit.

39:38

So it it depends.

39:40

Um, but we we care we look at everybody pretty carefully.

39:44

Uh we've been getting pretty good responses lately.

39:47

Uh the market seems to be better, and um, you know, I take it I try to take advantage of that as soon as I can because I don't want to I don't want to lose out on a on a good candidate.

39:58

And um that's why I'm here last time.

40:01

That's that sounds smart.

40:03

Because that's all if we wait much longer on Mr.

40:06

Hoyt, I think he's gonna go elsewhere.

40:08

And that would be a you know, that would that would be a loss for me.

40:14

Yeah.

40:14

Well, that exhausts my questions.

40:16

Any other questions from uh the committee?

40:18

Can I just say that?

40:19

Yeah, yeah, please.

40:20

Um just in response to Virgil's line of questioning and some questions along the committee.

40:25

We we did approve a clerk of the works contract.

40:27

Uh, P32.006 um for Michael Savita.

40:32

Like he's working on different projects, but it has come up uh in the past.

40:36

And um likewise, I mean to my understanding from what we've heard before about clerk of the Works contracts is you know, they're temporary employment because they're managing temporary projects.

40:45

Like I'm not sure it would make sense to bring them on into full-time roles as as uh representative Delacruz uh suggests, it seems like their employment is limited because they're supervising limited projects essentially.

40:58

Um that projects that end eventually so thank you okay thank you um at this point um any other questions or comments uh before uh before we uh move to a vote virgil your hand go ahead yes i make a motion to approve the item second yeah i think i think there's a motion on the table already very okay yeah um anything else virgil your hands still up so i uh no then i second that motion the motion is to approve the item okay excellent yes yeah so i'll second the motion then okay thank you any other uh any other comments okay with that then we will move to a vote uh okay uh the item before us is p32.010 approval of a clerk of the works two contract with mr alan hoyt uh representative pavia yes representative dale cruz yes representative cross yes representative pollock yes representative salas yes and i am a yes it is six zero zero the motion passes thank you so much i want to thank you all for your good questions they were great questions and thank you for your time i really appreciate it thank you you're welcome thank you thank you for continuing to educate us on what is you know what can be a confusing position um and you know so that's very helpful for the committee and with that that exhausts our agenda for tonight and much as it pains me to do so I will entertain a motion to adjournation thank you okay thanks guys good night everybody

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Personnel Matters█████████████████████████████████████████████59%
Engineering And Infrastructure██████████████████████29%
Procedural█████████12%
Summary of Proceedings

Personnel Committee Meeting Summary - May 18, 2026

The Personnel Committee of the Stamford Board of Representatives met on Monday, May 18, 2026, from 7:01 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. to consider two agenda items. The first item, approval of an employment contract for a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer (Janeene Freeman, Item P32.009), was held at the request of the mayor's office. The second item, approval of a Clerk of the Works II contract with Allan Hoyt (Item P32.010), was discussed at length and approved unanimously.

Discussion Items

City Engineer Lou Casolo presented the proposed Clerk of the Works II contract for Allan Hoyt. Key details of the contract include:

  • Hourly rate: $43.15 per hour (the minimum under the Clerk of the Works pay plan)
  • Workweek: 37.5 hours
  • Term: Three years (no option for later years)
  • Benefits: None; the position is an at-will, hourly contract without benefits
  • Role: Clerk of the Works serve as the city's "eyes and ears" on construction sites, monitoring daily progress, workforce, safety, and coordination with facility users. They also review invoices and progress against schedules.

Mr. Casolo explained that Mr. Hoyt is a Stamford resident and a former head custodian in the Stamford Public Schools, with light construction experience, making him well-suited to coordinate with school administration and custodial staff on school-related projects. He noted that the city currently has four full-time and two part-time clerks of the works, and Mr. Hoyt would become the fifth full-time clerk. He added that clerks are assigned based on project need and individual backgrounds.

Committee members asked questions about:

  • Project allocation: Mr. Casolo stated that multiple clerks can be assigned to large projects (e.g., the $350 million West Hill High School replacement) or district-wide accounts.
  • Turnover: Over the past two years, no incumbent clerks have left the position, though historically some have moved to full-time roles with benefits elsewhere.
  • Benefits and recruitment: Mr. Casolo noted that the lack of benefits can be a barrier for some candidates, but many applicants (like Mr. Hoyt) have retirement benefits from previous careers. He is actively recruiting another candidate.
  • Full-time status: Representative Virgil de la Cruz suggested making clerk positions permanent, full-time city jobs due to their importance. Mr. Casolo agreed that more clerks are needed but noted the temporary nature of the projects. Representative Maureen Pollack countered that clerks' employment is limited because they oversee temporary projects.

Key Outcomes

  • P32.009 (DEI contract for Janeene Freeman): Held without discussion at the request of the mayor's office. No action taken.
  • P32.010 (Clerk of the Works II contract for Allan Hoyt): Moved by Representative Gross, seconded by Representative Salas. Approved by a vote of 6-0-0 (Reps. Weinberg, Pavia, de la Cruz, Gross, Pollack, and Salas in favor; Rep. Hill absent). The contract will allow the City Engineer to maintain oversight of numerous capital projects.

Meeting Transcript

Um so uh I see uh present um committee members Virgil De la Cruz Theo Gross, uh Bobby Pavia, Maureen Pollack, Ricardo Salas, myself, Carl Weinberg. That's uh six out of seven. I therefore declare a quorum. It is 702 p.m. on Monday, May 18th. Uh this is a meeting of this Stanford Board of Representative Personnel Committee. Welcome. Uh I don't see Angie, I don't see anybody else from the committee from the board. Um present to you. No, I don't. Okay, great. Then we're going to plow forward. We have one item on the agenda tonight. It is P32. I will actually there are two items uh on the printed agenda. The first is P 32.009, approval of an employee employment contract for uh for a diversity equity inclusion officer. Uh that one is being held at the request of uh of the mayor's office. So we will move to item number two, p32.010, approval of a clerk of the works to contract with Mr. Alan Hoyt. Um and I see uh first I'll entertain a motion to approve. So thank you. Um motion by Representative Gross. Is there a second? Seconded by uh Representative Salas, and I will turn it over to our guest, City Engineer Lou Castle. Lou, thank you for joining us. And uh you have the floor. Uh good good evening, Lou Castleau, City Engineer. Um, Lou, I think you're frozen. Um, with the city of Stanford. Yeah, Lou. Yes. I'm sorry, but as soon as you said hi, Lou Castle, City Engineer. Um you you froze, so we didn't hear anything that you said it thereafter. And it appears that you're frozen again. So, Lou, can you hear me? If you can hear me, please raise your hand. I think that is a no. Um looks like it's on his hands. Yeah. I'm gonna try to call him if I've got his number. Someone else is online and can look up his number on the city website. But I don't know if he's in his office. No, we don't have it. Lou, you are unfortunately still frozen. Uh that's probably the only one we got, right? Oh, he drops. Oh, okay. Let me call it just in case 203. 977 5796. Look like he was home, that's a little much.

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