SAN BENITO — New policy bars employees from bidding at city auctions — eight months after former Fire Chief Raul Zuniga was stripped of his badge for bidding at a fire department auction.
Last night, city commissioners voted to approve changes to the city’s personnel policies as well as an amendment to its ethics ordinance.
Now, policy prohibits employees, their spouses and their relatives from bidding at city auctions.
“Neither an employee nor anyone related to the employee within the first degree by affinity or consanguinity may purchase or acquire or submit a bid or offer for the purchase or acquisition of any surplus property offered for sale by the city to the general public,” the policy states.
Last September, the city demoted Zuniga to a captain’s rank after he bid at a fire department auction.
However, the city’s Civil Service Commission overturned Zuniga’s five-day unpaid suspension in February, in part because the city did not have an ordinance prohibiting employees from bidding at city auctions.
As part of another revision, commissioners approved a policy prohibiting nepotism in the hiring process.
“No person related within the second degree of affinity (marriage) or within the third degree by consanguinity (blood) to any member of city commission (including the mayor) or the city manager shall be appointed to any paid position of or employment by the city,” the policy states.
The policy exempts Civil Service employees and employees continuously employed by the city for more than six months prior to the election of the related member of the city commission.
In another change to the personnel manual, the city now requires city employees be tested for substance abuse if they are “suspected of having caused or contributed to an on-the-job accident resulting in any personal injury or resulting in any property damage estimated to exceed $500.”
