Politics & Government

Dormont Manager Responds To No-Confidence Letter, Discusses Borough's Outlook

Gino Rizza says he has an open-door policy for workers and believes he has the borough's best interests in mind.

’s manager believes he’s an effective manager who has council’s support, the borough’s interests at heart and no plans to resign – despite an employee no-confidence letter and one council member’s call for his resignation.

Gino Rizza said he was surprised at the read Monday by Mayor Thomas Lloyd at a council meeting.

The letter charged he’s created a “hostile work environment that has destroyed labor relations and created an anti-employee atmosphere.”

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He said he thought the letter largely had to do with recent and ongoing contract negotiations.

Contracts with public safety were settled late last year and negotiations continue with the secretaries and public works department.

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“If an employee wants to talk to me, I talk to them,” Rizza said Thursday. “I try to keep open communication with my employees.”

But he said he’s got a job to do: bring stability to the borough, control spending and bring in new residents and businesses.

“Every dollar that goes out, I think: Is the taxpayer getting the biggest bang for their buck?” he said.

Rizza said he also appreciates the difficulty employees have faced with a revolving door of managers over the past decade. There have been a half-dozen.

“When I first started here, the joke was: How long do you think he’s going to last?” he said.

Council, by and large, appears to have faith in him, though Councilwoman Joan Hodson called for his resignation Monday, saying he won’t work with her.

“He’s getting the fall a lot of the times for council’s directions to him,” President Kim Lusardi said. “His job is: We direct him. We create policy.”

She said she fully supports Rizza and dismisses the notion that he has vendettas against any employee.

“I think Gino’s doing a tough job, but he’s doing a good job,” said Laurie Malka, vice president.

“He’s a lousy communicator,” she acknowledged. “I’ve told him this. I tell everybody this. But he’s forging ahead on what we need.”

Rizza admitted communication isn’t his strong point, but said he’s working on that.

“Gino is very blunt and to the point and doesn’t beat around the bush,” said Ian McMeans, the assistant borough manager and the only full-time employee who did not sign the letter.

“I wish it was a smoother process to get everybody else on board with (Rizza’s) vision for Dormont's future. But there are still positive signs — storefronts being filled up with new businesses, a large group of volunteers in varied groups who want to be part of Dormont's renaissance, and housing prices on the rise,” Councilman Drew Lehman said.

“You have to promote your product,” said Rizza, 46, who grew up and lives in Dormont — a plus when he interviewed for the job. “And the borough of Dormont is a product. You have to promote it to get businesses to move here and also residents to move here … Dormont has a lot of good assets.”

Among them, he’s said, is that it has easy access to public transportation and is a walkable community.

But it also has challenges.

The century-old community has declining population — about 8,600, according to latest census figures — 42 percent of residents rent, and there’s little room for new development in its not-quite-one-square-mile footprint.

Rizza said he wanted the job because he thought he could help his hometown.

He’d been an assistant manager under Warren Cecconi, who left two years ago to take a job closer to his home.

Though Rizza had no prior municipal experience, he has a master's degree in business administration from Robert Morris University, and did accounting at PNC and auditing at Mellon Bank before starting his own construction company.

“I saw this community moving in the wrong direction and I thought I would come here and get on board and try to help it move in the right direction,” he said.

He saw property maintenance issues, empty storefronts and streets and alleys in need of repair.

And before he was hired, the Local Government Academy issued a report saying that the Dormont was headed toward municipal bankruptcy under Act 47.

He said he and council were determined to prevent that.

The borough hasn’t increased taxes, nor has it laid off any full-time employees since he’s been in charge.

Raising taxes isn’t an option, he said, pointing out that at 14 mills, Dormont has one of the highest tax rates in Allegheny County.

That means someone with a house valued at $80,000 — the borough median — pays about $1,100 a year in property taxes, he said.

Rizza counts among his successes bringing in about $223,000 in grant money, such as federal Community Development Block Grant money and Community Infrastructure and Tourism Fund money from Allegheny County.

He said he’s trying to build relationships with Allegheny County and Port Authority officials. And he points to the new located on the site of the old South Hills Theatre, which he estimated should bring in some $14,000 to $21,000 in real estate taxes annually.

The upcoming borough newsletter — it should arrive next week — will provide a state-of-the-borough report, he said.

Rizza and council deny the borough is cutting public safety, which is one of the charges leveled against them.

Some of that criticism concerns doing away with the shift minimum standards during the last contract negotiations.

Shift minimums varied depending on the day of the week, but Rizza and McMeans said the staffing levels have essentially remained the same.

Doing away with them provides flexibility and should result in cost savings, they said.

“There (are) 21 shifts a week. I think there (are) only five shifts that have two men on it. And that’s usually during 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. where there’s not that much activity and crime. Our big nights are Friday and Saturday nights. We have four to five cops on those nights,” Rizza said.

The department has 13 officers. That’s the number it had in 1994, and it increased to 14 in 1998 and 15 in 2002, but it dropped back to 13 last April.

With a population of 8,600 in 2010, the staffing ratio is about one officer per 660 residents, which, McMeans said, puts Dormont in the middle compared with other municipalities.

Rizza has also been been blamed for not getting cameras for the police cars quick enough. Two of the department’s four cars had cameras but they’d been broken for at least a year before a sergeant notified him in December, Rizza said.

Phil Ross, who was demoted from chief to sergeant on Monday, previously said he hadn’t been made aware that the cameras weren’t working.

Rizza said he looked into getting grants to cover the cost — about $18,000 — but is in the process of ordering them after council approved its purchase Monday.

“We’re trying to make improvements, make public safety more efficient. Doing more with less, that’s what we have to do,” Rizza said.

As for criticisms and why he or council has largely chosen not to respond to them, he said: “Are we going to come out when somebody says anything and try to defend it? If they’re going to show me facts, then show me facts. I’m telling you what the facts are.”

“Everybody can have their own opinion. The facts are the facts. The budget is my job,” he said. “If there’s no money in the bank, how do these people get paid? How do we pay our bills?”


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