Frankly, no big deal to me. The city is not hiding the trip and the Clerk seems to have prepared in advance. To my knowledge, council members also attend conferences.
Our city has a small staff. New ideas and best practices come from networking and conferences such as this. I’ve been with many organizations who get too penny wise and pound foolish by not investing in staff development and new ideas.
I agree that the timing isn’t the best, or the location. But my general points still stand.
I don’t recall the city ever “announcing” that staff are traveling for professional development, yet I know that they do. I’d be bothered if her attendance was not acknowledged, but it was.
I agree - Sounds like Stephanie Mendoza is going on an approved work-related trip. I agree the timing could be better with early voting, but based on her response to your question she put all of her ducks in a row before leaving.
I think the focus should on what she accomplished as clerk in the last 4 years. My understanding is that she organized and digitized a massive backlog of historical records. While not as flashy as an overseas trip during election time, sure does help the city function.
It is not the job of an investigative journalist (me) to write a fluff piece about all the things the Clerk has done the last four years, during the election season. You can find plenty of that in political content put out by candidates, including Ms. Mendoza's campaign.
It is absolutely newsworthy that the Clerk is going out of the country during the election. It's less newsworthy at other times and I probably wouldn't write about it unless there was another variable to the story. I am not being critical of her ability to take work trips, she's welcome to do that, but the Clerk does have responsibilities during the election, which I have pointed out in the story.
Let's just say that some of the "perks" that certain jobs (govt.,education, corporate.elected officials,etc) receive are going to conferences, conventions, workshops, out of state should be related to their work.
Can one person or more have to go? Thousands of dollars are spent under "professional development" . Is it work or a short vacation?
In the past and now, the financial demand on our taxes for education and government has been taken for granted.
Considering an organization making major moves, installations of new equipment, capital improvements, management also want their key staff to be on board for these changes.
An invitation is worthy of response to attend a convention if it will improve the organiztions' profitability, marketing, operations.....What does the Taiwan Trade Show do for a Western city govt.?
Well, according to co2.myclimate.org, round trip her share of the flight generates 5.3t CO2, which is about 70% of the CO2 generated by a single EU person over a year.
Thank you Tom. You are such a great Investigative Journalist. Award Winning! Biss must have approved Mendoza’s travels. I know who I’m voting for and it’s not incumbents.
I'm not sure how it works here because she's elected and not a staffer. I would think that he probably has to approve the other staffers that are attending, but I'm not sure how it works with the Clerk in particular.
Wow - international boondoggle for multiple city employees while the city is under immense budgetary issues. I can’t say I’m surprised, but very disappointed. Thanks Tom, great stuff as always!
As someone who works in the public sector, I'm expected to engage in professional development but also every dollar is scrutinized. I'm glad she gets to go to this conference! It sounds like a wonderful opportunity and I'm happy to support that!
So we won’t find out if the City paid for the travel/conference until AFTER the April 1 election? Did you ask Mendoza who’s paying for this? I think she owes Evanston taxpayers an answer now.
Correct. My understanding is that some of the travel is paid for by the Taiwanese Government but it is not clear how much and for who. I didn't ask for details on the cost. I can follow up, but too much other election coverage to write about at the moment
There are qualified professionals who are actually in the genius category at Northwestern to provide expert opinions on new sources of energy. Our budget is already quite an issue. I’d like to know how many people were on this trip and how much did it cost. All expenses paid I assume. What about Fiscal Responsibility and Transparency?
What's up with these clerks? Remember Rodney Greene's appropriation of clerk funds to pay for an entry into a scam Who's Who book?
Unfortunately that brought us Devon Reid.
Mendoza's trip sounds like a worthless junket. I'm writing in Vanessa Johnson-McCoy. (That's a tough, complicated appellation for a Write-In candidate, though!)
Frankly, no big deal to me. The city is not hiding the trip and the Clerk seems to have prepared in advance. To my knowledge, council members also attend conferences.
Our city has a small staff. New ideas and best practices come from networking and conferences such as this. I’ve been with many organizations who get too penny wise and pound foolish by not investing in staff development and new ideas.
Well the City didn’t exactly announce this, I had to do a lot of journalism here to even confirm this and get the comment.
but yeah I don’t disagree. I do think the timing is not good, which is why it’s newsworthy
I agree that the timing isn’t the best, or the location. But my general points still stand.
I don’t recall the city ever “announcing” that staff are traveling for professional development, yet I know that they do. I’d be bothered if her attendance was not acknowledged, but it was.
Agree!!
I agree - Sounds like Stephanie Mendoza is going on an approved work-related trip. I agree the timing could be better with early voting, but based on her response to your question she put all of her ducks in a row before leaving.
I think the focus should on what she accomplished as clerk in the last 4 years. My understanding is that she organized and digitized a massive backlog of historical records. While not as flashy as an overseas trip during election time, sure does help the city function.
It is not the job of an investigative journalist (me) to write a fluff piece about all the things the Clerk has done the last four years, during the election season. You can find plenty of that in political content put out by candidates, including Ms. Mendoza's campaign.
It is absolutely newsworthy that the Clerk is going out of the country during the election. It's less newsworthy at other times and I probably wouldn't write about it unless there was another variable to the story. I am not being critical of her ability to take work trips, she's welcome to do that, but the Clerk does have responsibilities during the election, which I have pointed out in the story.
Let's just say that some of the "perks" that certain jobs (govt.,education, corporate.elected officials,etc) receive are going to conferences, conventions, workshops, out of state should be related to their work.
Can one person or more have to go? Thousands of dollars are spent under "professional development" . Is it work or a short vacation?
In the past and now, the financial demand on our taxes for education and government has been taken for granted.
Considering an organization making major moves, installations of new equipment, capital improvements, management also want their key staff to be on board for these changes.
An invitation is worthy of response to attend a convention if it will improve the organiztions' profitability, marketing, operations.....What does the Taiwan Trade Show do for a Western city govt.?
Well, according to co2.myclimate.org, round trip her share of the flight generates 5.3t CO2, which is about 70% of the CO2 generated by a single EU person over a year.
Thank you Tom. You are such a great Investigative Journalist. Award Winning! Biss must have approved Mendoza’s travels. I know who I’m voting for and it’s not incumbents.
I'm not sure how it works here because she's elected and not a staffer. I would think that he probably has to approve the other staffers that are attending, but I'm not sure how it works with the Clerk in particular.
Wow - international boondoggle for multiple city employees while the city is under immense budgetary issues. I can’t say I’m surprised, but very disappointed. Thanks Tom, great stuff as always!
As someone who works in the public sector, I'm expected to engage in professional development but also every dollar is scrutinized. I'm glad she gets to go to this conference! It sounds like a wonderful opportunity and I'm happy to support that!
So we won’t find out if the City paid for the travel/conference until AFTER the April 1 election? Did you ask Mendoza who’s paying for this? I think she owes Evanston taxpayers an answer now.
Correct. My understanding is that some of the travel is paid for by the Taiwanese Government but it is not clear how much and for who. I didn't ask for details on the cost. I can follow up, but too much other election coverage to write about at the moment
There are qualified professionals who are actually in the genius category at Northwestern to provide expert opinions on new sources of energy. Our budget is already quite an issue. I’d like to know how many people were on this trip and how much did it cost. All expenses paid I assume. What about Fiscal Responsibility and Transparency?
What's up with these clerks? Remember Rodney Greene's appropriation of clerk funds to pay for an entry into a scam Who's Who book?
Unfortunately that brought us Devon Reid.
Mendoza's trip sounds like a worthless junket. I'm writing in Vanessa Johnson-McCoy. (That's a tough, complicated appellation for a Write-In candidate, though!)
I recommend they go see some CPBL baseball while there. Go Hawks! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSG_Hawks