Things are never easy at Erie City Hall. It’s even hard to quit there.
Take the case of embattled Public Safety Director Erby Conley, who left this week but didn’t resign.
That’s according to his lawyer anyway.
Eighteen months ago Mayor Rick Filippi appointed the former State Police Commander as Public Safety Director to oversee the police and fire bureaus.
In what turned out to be a pretty shrewd political move, the Mayor’s appointment created one of the highest ranking positions an African-American has ever held in city government.
The majority of Erie City Council members didn’t want to staff the position but faced with the clamor from the minority community and religious leaders Council backed off.
But they didn’t forget.
Conley came from the buttoned down command structure of the State Police and entered a world of political intrigue, compromise and sometimes outright chaos.
From the beginning it was nearly impossible to get anything done. Council members were dead set against just about anything proposed by the administration. Rank-and-file cops resented a state cop coming into a leadership position to show the “local yokels� how police work was done, and rank-and-file firefighters didn’t respect Conley’s lack of firefighting experience.
“I’ll talk to people, I’ll study and I’ll learn,� Conley told them, but it wasn’t enough.
This year members of Council, still stinging over the forced hire, used a tight budget as an excuse to cut Conley’s entire office out of the budget.
They had done that elsewhere before, nine times in fact, but each time Mayor Filippi found funds elsewhere in the budget to keep a position funded and a staffer employed.
He assured Conley the same would happen this time, but it didn’t, because some on council had taken the extra step of asking the City Controller to intervene.
Conley’s paycheck was withheld on the grounds that his job didn’t exist, setting the stage for a six-month stare down between Council and the Mayor with Conley caught in the middle showing up for work for no compensation.
All of which brings us to this week and the difficulties in even quitting City Hall.
Conley turned in his City car, his keys and the other trappings of office on Friday.
That led the media to report that Conley had had enough and had resigned.
“Not only did he not resign,� his attorney Neal Sanders told me in quite animated fashion, “but he was terminated in January.�
Seems that Mr. Conley is not only seeking back pay, but he’s also ready to sue in federal court for being the only one of ten employees not allowed to keep his job through alternative funding, and being the only one of those ten who’s African-American.
It’s something a former State Police Commander would have never envisioned when he was hired.
Nothing is ever easy at Erie City Hall. It’s not easy to work there. Apparently, it’s not easy to leave there, either.