Houston Council throws out former sergeant’s evaluation

HOUSTON — The Houston City Council voted 5-2 Monday to declare null and void a performance evaluation in former police Sgt. Charlie Seidl’s personnel record that had lead up to his termination last March.

Although Seidl was not reinstated as a city employee, his employment record will at least be a little less damaging now. This will make it easier for him to find other employment.

Seidl had requested the new council review the evaluation documents due to difficulties he was having finding a new job, according to city staff.

“His evaluation just didn’t hold up to the standards needed to keep it in his file,” Councilwoman Kathleen Barney explained after the vote. The motion declared that the documents didn’t meet the criteria for an objective evaluation.

Council members Ruth Blanchard and Lance Wilson disagreed, however. They voted to keep the evaluation intact.

“I thought his job performance was very poor,” Blanchard said of Seidl. “I don’t think he was doing his job. The city lost a lot of money because he wasn’t doing his job. Most of the council was just listening to Charlie and didn’t look at the facts.”

Seidl, who had joined the Houston Police Department in December 2008 after serving as a police officer in Dillingham the previous year and in Bethel for five years before that, was fired last March when the previous council ruled Seidl had failed to complete reports and to tell Alaska State Troopers when he would be absent.

Seidl had received three previous disciplinary actions since his hiring, according to former mayor Roger Purcell.

He had been suspended for two weeks in February 2010 after shooting eight animals at the Houston Animal Shelter. Seidl claimed that then-mayor Purcell had ordered him to shoot the four dogs and four cats because they weren’t being adopted and the city couldn’t afford to take care of them any longer.

Purcell argued later that he never actually told Seidl to shoot the animals — just to dispose of them.

Seidl’s performance evaluation was written by Houston Police Officer Charley McAnally, who was hired to the police force after Seidl, and was appointed head of the department by Purcell after Seidl came off his suspension.

Capt. McAnally is currently facing his own troubles after being suspended earlier this month for telling a Frontiersman reporter the name of a city employee who had complained about him following a New Year’s Eve incident.

According to McAnally, Fire Department Spokesman Christian Hartley filed a complaint against him after witnessing an exchange between him and Palmer resident Frank Meyer at a fireworks stand.

Hartley apparently thought McAnally had stepped over the line with Meyer, but McAnally argued he was just doing his job when Meyer was getting out of hand that night.

Since city policy prevents employees from discussing personnel matters in such detail when a complaint is filed, McAnally was suspended.

McAnally’s case also was going to be discussed by the council in executive session Monday, but the council decided to table his case until a later time and concentrate solely on Seidl’s case.

Before council went into executive session, however, Houston Planning Commissioner Ralph Buzard pleaded with the council members not to let Seidl off the hook so easily.

“I just told them they’d better think twice and do more research on Mr. Seidl before they rescind his evaluation,” Buzard said. “There are things in his past that should be investigated.”

Buzard pointed to an anonymous letter written by someone from the Houston Humane Treatment of Animals group.

The letter accuses Houston Mayor Virgie Thompson of “covering up a great injustice of the cruel slaughter of incent [sic] companions by former police Sgt. Charlie Seidl.”

It goes on to say that Thompson and Deputy Mayor Jim Johansen are meeting secretly in executive session to “expunge the slaughter of eight defenseless pets” from Seidl’s records and that this is not the first time Seidl has “murdered” innocent animals.

The letter claims that officers from Bethel and Dillingham could attest to the fact that Seidl shot animals in those towns, as well.

Seidl said Monday while waiting for the council’s decision during the hour-long, closed-door meeting that the letter is full of “slander.” He welcomed calls to his former employers in Bethel and Dillingham to verify if any of it is true.

“The agencies in Bethel and Dillingham can attest to my character,” Seidl said.

Attempts by the Frontiersman to reach authorities in those towns this week were not successful.

Mayor Virgie Thompson called the letter from the Houston Humane Treatment of Animals “garbage” when asked about it Thursday.

“I would have loved for someone from that group to have come to talk to us and present their case to us, but when it came to Mr. Seidl’s evaluation, that wasn’t even an issue,” Thompson said. “I wasn’t even aware what the personnel committee’s recommendations were going to be, but most of us felt they’d done a thorough job of inspecting Seidl’s evaluation and we agreed it had issues.”

The personnel committee was comprised of Personnel Director Carolyn Grabowski, Deputy Mayor Johansen and councilwoman Barney.

Seidl was grateful to the council for helping clear his record Monday.

“I appreciate the council taking the time to look into it and address it,” he said after the council’s vote.

Contact K.T. McKee at kate.mckee@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.