Sacramento city manager didn’t complete council-mandated diversity training. What gives? | Opinion
Last year, the Sacramento City Council ordered mandatory diversity training for itself and its top staff. All nine council members completed the training. So did their top staff and all the top charter officers, save one.
City Manager Howard Chan.
When a City Council committee reviewed compliance with the mandatory training last week, nobody mentioned that Chan was the lone appointed officer who failed to comply with the council's directive. No staffer. No consultant. No council member.
"Whoever refused to take this test should be identified to the public," said Lambert Davis, owner of a long-time cheesecake business and a frequent speaker at council meetings. But his request at the Racial Equity Committee was met with stony silence.
Chan was supposed to attend three 90-minute sessions but only made it to one.
"Council leadership and the Human Resources Director are aware that the City Manager attended one of three sessions," said city spokeswoman Jennifer Singer. "Beyond that, I cannot comment as this is a personnel matter."
This isn't the first time Chan failed to comply with a directive approved by elected council members who are allegedly his bosses. On July 30, all the top officers working at City Hall turned in their annual reports for the previous fiscal year. Chan didn't.
"The city manager refused to do it," said Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, the only elected Sacramentan who has shown the courage to speak out about the city manager's behavior. "We even voted on this dais to require ourselves and our staff - including our city manager - to take a mandatory DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) course, and he refused to do that too."
Chan's failure to perform some pretty basic office duties coincides with the city council's refusal to grant his request for an extended employment contract.
As the Bee has repeatedly reported , amendments to Chan's contract over seven years have made him the highest-paid city manager in California. One amendment in 2022 gave Chan more than a year's extra pay in the form of personal leave he could cash out at his discretion. Chan previously agreed to his contract expiring at the end of this year, which coincides with the arrival of a new mayor and two new council members.
Chan has changed his mind and now wants a longer contract.
In June, the Bee reported that the City Council had privately discussed Chan's salary as part of a performance evaluation, a potential violation of the state's open meeting law. Regardless, no action was taken at that meeting. Chan did not get a raise or a contract extension, which seems to have coincided with his no-show to his annual review in public session in July, and then the mandatory diversity training.
Two city-hired trainers conducted 14 diversity training sessions for the council and key staffers from July through October. The sessions touched on a variety of topics, including the history of racism and improving relationships across racial, gender and sexual orientation.
Councilwoman Lisa Kaplan chided her fellow council members about her sessions. "To do this right, you have to be open, you have to be vulnerable, and you have to be on time," she said. Curiously, Kaplan said nothing about Chan.
The closest any council member came to mentioning Chan's no-show was Mai Vang, and even then, she would not mention Chan by name.
Vang came the closest to mentioning Chan by name. Speaking to Wohl, Vang said, "You did mention that we had one appointed officer who did not attend the training. It's mandatory, right?"
Yes, councilwoman. It is mandatory. Here is why Chan's behavior is relevant to city residents:
When a city manager makes his own compensation a central issue for the city council, or skips required training, it becomes a distraction from Sacramento's real business. The priorities of every-day Sacramentans get lost in the squabbling. Everybody loses.
At the moment, there doesn't appear to be the necessary five votes on the council to do anything about Chan's contract. So on Oct. 15 it punted Chan's contract issue to the new mayor and the new council at its very first meeting this Dec. 10.
Rank and file employees who refuse to take mandatory training and complete mandatory reviews get fired. These are basic, non-negotiable requirements of the job.
Yet when it comes to Howard Chan, this city council has looked the other way for far too long. It is avoiding a conflict. And it is only getting worse.
