Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp. is funded mostly by hotel tax from both Counties. Its job is to attract business and jobs to this area, but it comes under criticism for a perceived failure to produce.Today, LVEDC starts "Summer hours." The company actually tweats, "We start summer hours today. That means most of the staff leave at noon, many to hit the links. Do you observe summer hours? What do you do?"
Incredible.
Nice to know our tax money is funding their afternoon golf outings.
44 comments:
Bernie -
Where do I begin?
The idiot responsible for the tweat should be fired, as I have to question their judgement in putting something like that out for the public. Likewise, the person who authorized "summer hours" should get the boot.
I can't imagine the arrogance needed within an economic development agency to establish "summer hours" during a down economy. What's next - a underwear shot of one of the board members? At least that might be a more accurate picture of what the taxpayers are actually getting.
Maybe there's just not as much to do in the economic development business at this time of year.
This is just one of many reasons why these types of non-profits, authorities and boards need to be de-funded by our local governments.
The taxpayers are (once again) being robbed.
agree so much
Good job Mr. Ohare. I will let you slide on posting my pic.
I work half days in Summer: 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. It's why my golf game sucks. 9% unemployment and they're effing off. I want my money back. And they should receive no more.
While this is certainly bad PR, I would first point out that they do great work and have created a lot of jobs in the valley.
Second, how do you know that the excused employees aren't taking vacation time or comp time or if this time off was negotiated into the fair market value of their salaries.
Third, one of the benefits to having a professional position (even with the government) is that you sometimes make your own hours. Some nights you work until 10 p.m. others you leave at noon to play golf.
Oh, come on!!! Please give me an example when one employee of LVEDC is working until 10pm, as a matter of course. As a professional myself, I can tell you that we ALL work hard and long when we have to but I can assure you that no other business in the valley has summer hours where all of their employees are regularly off at noon in exchange for those incremental instances when we work late nights. This isn't 1968 - it's 2011 in the midst of a depression - we no longer have the two martini lunch, go golfing regularly in the middle of the week in summer and we certainly do not publicize it when we do...the stupidity of that tweet is awe-inspiring!
are we paying for the guy in the picture food or worse yet medical coverage?
Looks like Barron sans kilt.
I guess all of you who have read and responded to the tweet work the night shift.
Everyone except two of you wrote in during the day. I guess it doesn't matter when you don't work a full 40 because you obviousl;y have time to read and write to thios blog. I almost forgot. How many evenings or early morning meetings do you attend? I hope you punch in and out for the full hour you take at lunch.
By the way, I don't condone the tweet, I just think it's a slow news day.
This is typical but the private sector is no better. Check out the schedule on one of the many Chamber of Commerce employees. Those folks are goldbricking most of the time. Businesses who pay these loafers show why dumb comes in all flavors.
Of course for those jobs there is non-stop ass kissing bt Iannelli and company and that is one thing most executives love is a good old wet one right on the ass.
John Dally's belly is so enormous he may actually have little Stevie in there!
LVEDC has sent a "blog response" to some of its customers, trying to minimize getting paid by the taxpayers to hit the links on Friday because it works really, really hard. Although it is responding to a blog, it fails to state it's actually my blog. It accuses me of "sensationalism."
I'll be posting the response sometime later this weekend. I'm on Summer hours, too. A lot of people are on Summer hours. It's called unemployment.
"This is typical but the private sector is no better"
I don't really give a rat's ass about the private sector. I do care that LVEDC employees think they can play golf on the public dime.
"I guess all of you who have read and responded to the tweet work the night shift."
Let me get this straight. People in the private sector should stay off twitter while you, who are funded by the public, can play golf.
I'll bet you don't condone the tweet. But instead of condemning this misuse of public money, you try to minimize it.
Patrick McHenry said...
"I can't imagine the arrogance..."
Then you must live in a box. This IS what public troughfeeders of all parties believe is their God-given right, from the highest levels of the Federal government to our school teachers and economic development morons like this tweeting twat.
You don't have to imagine, it is reality.
Dear 1:40 a.m.,
Not sure who you are but I am one of those "economic development chics" you accuse of glad handing thighs. Your comment is insulting and sexist. Additionally, your comment shows your ignorance regarding the various roles of economic development professionals in the Lehigh Valley. Because my door is always open I will not spend the time detailing my responosilibities here but of course, I invite you to stop by anytime and learn a little more about the people and departments you are criticizing.
Thanks,
Alicia Karner
Alicia, The remark in question was sexist and is deleted. I don't know how that whack job took a criticism of LVEDC's Summer hours and went from there to attack NC & LC DCED or talk about the women in both offices. But I do know this - you'll never find out who the anonymous coward is who posted that remark.
I know Alicia Karner. And I can assure you, she's much more likely to hit you with a cattle prod than engage in any of the alleged inappropriate glad-handing.
4 Days 9 hours 36 hours
1 Day 4 hours 4 hours
5 days 40 hours
Bernie I am no fan of DCED departments as I know many are not. It is not a "core" responsibility of the county government and therefore unnecessary. I will not attack the people in the offices since I do not know them but certainly we all know the first rule of bureaucracy is to find ways to justify your existence.
My guess is some remark was probably a bad joke, nevertheless as we look to cut the largess of government at all levels a taxpayer has every right to question all government operations.
There are many people who question the need for extensive county departments. Even Ron Angle stated in the past they were unnecessary, now he doesn't but that doesn't change what he has historically said. I know because I heard him tell a group I was part of that the county dced should be eliminated.
Whether the people doing the DCED jobs are nice or not is not relevant. The fact is if it is not a core service of county government it should go.
Ray Mann
Ray, The comment was sexist and that is why it was deleted. Although I'll agree that economic development is not a core county function, many aspects of community development fall in that category.
Hotel tax money must be used for tourism and economic development. Instead of giving that $ to LVEDC so they can ht the links on Friday, it probably would do much more good in the county DCEDs.
Some members of Council have discussed this. The LVP, made up of blue-haired country club Rs used to making their decisions at Saucon Valley Country Club is the group that wants LVEDC. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're wrong. But the Summer hours need to stop.
"I know Alicia Karner. And I can assure you, she's much more likely to hit you with a cattle prod than engage in any of the alleged inappropriate glad-handing."
Sometimes, she'll zap me just because she feels like it.
This is such a misleading and sensationalist blog title, Bernie. Obviously, the taxpayers are not paying for the golf outings, and its extremely unlikely that the 4 hours of "summer hours" is even paid time off for employees.
"Summer hours" almost never entails working fewer hours, but is rather a re-allocation of hours throughout the week so that employees can leave early on Fridays. Alternate or flexible scheduling has been proven over and over to improve employee productivity, morale, and retention - as the taxpaying public, we should encourage more public offices to build in these types of win-win HR practices into their operations.
I think the blog title is entirely accurate. The public funds LVEDC, and they are paying people to leave early on Friday to hit the links. "[M]ost of the staff leave at noon, many to hit the links."
It is entirely inappropriate during a recession or depression for a publicly-funded economic development organization, one that is paid to produce jobs, to smugly brag about hitting the golf course on their publicly financed salaries. It is also completely tone deaf to tweat about it.
I know plenty of people on Summer hours. For some, it is mandatory furloughs. For many other, it is unemployment.
This is not flexible scheduling. These are just people who think we're back in the 60s.
Karner is a Boscola apostle and like Lisa at times lacks finesse. We need more economic development in Norco. We're sick of all of the announcements of companies moving to Lehigh County. We are like the bridesmaid of the Lehigh Valley. And that was NOT intended to be sexist!!!!
Your first comment was not intended to be sexist. It was sexist. This comment is just ignorant.
LVEDC is an organization detached from reality. I think the "tweet" shows incompetence above anything else.
Recession or not, this is just something you don't advertise because it's liable to garner unnecessary bad publicity you can't afford.
I deleted yet another cowardly anonymous personal attack against a DCED employee. You will have to identify yourself.
It's probably a cost saving measure designed to turn off the A/C early and save on energy bills. I used to work at a big company that observed summer hours at headquarters (they still do the summer hour thing), and the goal was primarily energy cost reduction, believe it or not. In my old company's case, we definitely worked much more than 40 hours a week, anyways.
But then again, the folks who had to be in direct contact with actual CUSTOMERS did NOT get summer hours, as it was the main mission to help the customer on THEIR schedule, not the corporate golf schedule.
I will give the tweeter the benefit of the doubt and just assume that they're making up the hours on another day. Subsequent tweets at the LVEDC site indicate that's what's happening. Also, later tweets state that a manager is always on duty to answer calls if the need arises.
I always enjoy a chance to trash a publically funded organziation, but in this case, I really don't think there's any scandal - just a poorly thought out tweet, which is the risk you take when you use social media in your business. I actually feel badly for the kid who tweeted that message.
Frankly, those subsequent comments came after LVEDC realized it had to cover its ass because of my blog post. This is not some flex schedule, but people trying to pretend they are big shots ... and on the public dime.
From "most of the staff leave at noon, many to hit the links" to "critical staff stay here all day" to "Call us at 5 if you'd like - we will be here!" to "Our finance department is uber busy with lots of deals today. Lots of activity here in the Lehigh Valley!" to "Nobody teeing off today. Too much work to do - short week with Monday."
Amazingly, in the course of a few short hours, the tweets went from most of them leaving early that day to nobody leaving early.
Some schlep at LVEDC may have to go to a meeting once every two months that is outside regular business hours. That's no reason for this kind of bullshit or for bragging abut it.
Monkey Momma, I doubt very much this has anything to do with saving money or is designed to save energy. I'll have more on this tomorrow.
Bernie,
For all of your obviously slanted commentary against LVEDC for using flex time (and trust me that is what it is), as I recall, Alicia works 4 days a week (four 10 hour days). She too works flex time, but in her case it is year around. How do you feel about that? Do you think she deserves that benefit? Do you think she takes advantage of that situation? I wonder why the County would allow such a thing? maybe because flex time does provide all of the benefits outlined in the comment above.
"For all of your obviously slanted commentary against LVEDC for using flex time (and trust me that is what it is"
Why in earth would i trust an anonymous commenter? Thus was not flex time, but "Summer" hours, in which nearly everyone skips out early on Friday. That's how it was described until the heat was turned up. Suddenly, it went from "We're all leaving early" to "Everyone will be here all day." In other words, you don't work 40 hrs per week during the Summer.
I have nothing against 4-day weeks (with 40 Hrs) but that is not what you were planning to do. You were planning to cut back in the Summer.
I don't disagree that in a time when many people are un or underemployed, its not particularly wise to tweet about hitting the golf course on a Friday afternoon, but I still think you're going down the wrong path on this seemingly trivial post.
I have worked jobs with summer hours, and have lots of friends who work jobs with summer hours, and in my experience that has never entailed a company reducing its normal work week from 40 hours to 36 hours for summer hours. Maybe that is something that used to define summer hours, but today summer hours just means you move the schedule around a bit, and unless you had evidence to the contrary, I think you jumped to a bad conclusion on this one.
Actually, I believe you came to the wrong conclusion. These guys already take it easy and are using Summer as an excuse to screw off even more. This secretive company has a history of golden parachutes and soft landings. They got caught after pulling a Weiner, and now their defense is to say they really do work hard.
Bernie, incomplete knowledge can damage many a reputation. While I think the tweet was extremely inappropriate, I do think you owe it to the employees to at least ascertain the facts befo9re you crucify them with half facts and innuendo..
As far as Northampton County goes, all I can say is Wow! a four day week 10 hrs a day. No wonder her door is always open. Just don't show up on her day off. .
Excuse me? I am using their own tweet, in which they brag that most of them are leaving at noon, many to hit the links. I did not pull that out of my ass. That came from them.
I have no problem with flex time, but believe that is damage control from LVEDC.
i read the release from lvedc. over all, i think bernie is being kind. although they cite businesses which have located here, there role in that decision is not clear. i'm not a big fan of these planning and development departments. personally, i believe they would be pressed to organize a good child's birthday party, much less real development. one employer they cite is ocean spray. they're leaving new jersey because they can't conform with the new discharge rules there. they are a major water user and contaminator of sewage, who are joining other companies as LVA sacrifices the little lehigh.
Flex time is the most notoriously misused schedule in government. People come in at hours when no one is around and screw off eating breakfast or they work four days and take a very loosely supervised ten hour work day.
When Stoffa first campaigned he complained about this and said the then county employees should work the schedule of the court house. Another case of Stoffa saying do as I say and not as I do. Either that or he is again unaware of what is going on around him.
By the way Bernie what is good for the goose is good for the gander. As a taxpayer I pay for both government and quasi-government make work economic development jobs.
All bullshit!
Ten hours a day, Bwahahaha!! In your dreams.
One thing you have going on here is that younger folks have been hired to "manage" the social media outlets for the LVEDC. They do so probably without much supervision simply because the 'adults' among the management don't consider these outlets that important.
The folks placed in charge of the Twitter and Facebook accounts, left to thier own devices, are hard pressed to produce useful posts since not that much is going on on a daily basis. So they become creative.
The venue being 'social,' the tendency is to 'chat' and the tone lapes into conversational banter thus, the "We're moving to summer hours, do you observe summer hours? What are yours like?" feels to the author like a useful exchange among peers.
The young 'professionals' placed 'in charge' have very little experience - in other words, they don't know what they are doing.
No one will be fired because the little darlings are just doing what they've been encouraged to do: make the LVEDC 'hip' and happening and, well, youthful.
Stoffa made no such promise. Another piece of disinformation.
Yes he did Bernie. In one of his stump speech's condemning Reibman, he stated in response to a question that work schedules are abused and that staff should work when the courthouse is open.
Don't call people liars before you do your research. Your mancrush for Stoffa gets in the way of being honest and responsible.
Just the Facts
This post is not about Stoffa. You make everything about him, and then you talk about my bias. The truth is that you hate this guy. The election is over. Get over it already. You are either Reibman, who I'm told is still very bitter, or Daday, who is just plain nuts.
Reibman said people should work when the courthouse is open. From that, you conclude he opposes a four-day work week? Are you that goofy? If people work 4 day weeks on staggered schedules, that means the courthouse could actually remain open 2 more hours.
Stoffa never opposed flexible work schedules. He opposes jerks who walked the halls or who pretend to be working from home.
Doesn't Alan Fowler work from home?
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