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Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Davenport city leaders testify in Scott County lawsuit about 3 settlements
City of Davenport leaders testified Wednesday in a Scott County Court trial after allegations that the City of Davenport violated state law. Mayor Mike Matson and other city leaders, including Alderperson Marion Meginnis, took the stand Wednesday. Scott County Court records show that, although deputies tried to make contact with retired assistant city attorney Brian Heyer, attempts to serve him a subpoena have been unsuccessful. In January 2024, Dr. Allen L. Diercks, who lives in Bettendorf and owns property in Davenport, filed a petition about the open meetings act and settlements of nearly $2 million with three city employees. In the civil suit, he is represented by attorneys Michael J. Meloy, and John T. Flynn, Scott County Court documents show, A judge is presiding over the trial, which began Tuesday and is scheduled to continue for four days. (In a bench trial, the judge makes the decisions, whereas jurors make the decisions in a jury trial.) Read the lawsuit below: Dierks-lawsuitDownload Details of the lawsuit The lawsuit names as defendants the City of Davenport, the Davenport City Council, and City Attorney Tom Warner. The suit challenges the execution of three 'settlement' contracts by Warner of about $2 million with three city employees, and says the contracts were signed without prior city council approval in violation of the Iowa Code. Warner was the corporation counsel for the City of Davenport and was a full-time in-house legal employee of the city, the suit says. The suit says Corrin Spiegel was the city administrator in 2023 and was hired in 2016 as city administrator, and that Spiegel was Warner's immediate job and operational supervisor. Tiffany Thorndike and Samantha Torres were at-will employees who were supervised by Spiegel and who both worked as executive assistants for the office of the mayor and the city council, according to the suit. On Sept. 8, 2023, 'without prior council approval voted upon by the Council in an open meeting,' Warner signed two separate settlement agreements with Thorndike and Torres for $157,000 and $140,500 dollars, respectively, the suit claims, saying the council did not vote to approve nor was provided the actual Thorndike and Torres agreements 'prior to its execution on September 8, 2023.' On Oct. 2023, 'without prior Council approval voted upon by the Council in an open meeting,' the suit accuses Warner of signing a third settlement agreement with Spiegel, for $1,600,000, including $600,000 dollars for lost wages and $1 million for emotional pain and suffering. The Council did not vote to approve and was not provided the actual Spiegel settlement agreement prior to its execution on Oct. 6, 2023, the suit says. Each of these three settlement agreements was a Chapter 22 public record upon the dates of their execution, according to the suit. The lawsuit claims each of the three executed settlement agreements constitutes a void contract between the parties signing the agreements. The council did not approve any of these three settlement agreements, by a recorded vote in an open meeting, with Thorndike, Torres and Spiegel, prior to the date Warner signed said agreements with the three employees, the suit says. On Nov. 10, 2023, according to the suit, the city disbursed settlement funds to Thorndike and Torres for $157,000 and $140,500. On or about Nov. 20, 2023, the suit says, the city announced that Warner was retiring effective Jan. 2, 2024. On Nov. 22, 2023, the city first publicly disclosed the settlement agreement executed with Spiegel, 'keeping the contract, which was a public record, secret from public knowledge and inspection' for a period of 47 days, after the date Warner executed the settlement agreement with Spiegel on Oct. 6, 2023. On Nov. 29, 2023, the city first publicly disclosed the Thorndike and Torres settlements, 'keeping these contracts, which were public records, secret from public knowledge and inspection for 83 days' after Warner executed the agreements on Sept. 8, 2023, the suit says. On or about Dec. 4, 2023, Warner was placed on administrative leave by the city, 'without the City disclosing the reason for Warner's administrative leave,' the suit says, adding the three large monetary settlements 'were purposely kept secret, by Warner and Mayor Matson, from the public until after the November 7, 2023 municipal election for Mayor, to protect the incumbent Mayor from public criticism and potential loss of electoral office, in his re-election bid for a third term in office.' The suit alleges the settlement agreements were 'purposely kept secret' by Warner and the council from the public until after the municipal elections for alderpersons 'to protect incumbent alderpersons from public criticism and potential loss of electoral office, in their reelection bids.' On Dec. 13, 2023, the council held an executive session 'to discuss strategy with counsel in matters involving litigation,' according to the lawsuit, which says a 'a secret (executive) session' was held after the mayor adjourned the regular council meeting in a session 'involving litigation.' According to the suit, 'At the conclusion of the secret (executive) session' held on Dec. 13, 2023, the council, by vote of 6 to 1 (3 council persons not voting), voted to 'ratify' the three settlements. In the suit, Diercks requests that the court: Declare these three employee settlement agreements were void and could not be ratified by the council on Dec. 13, 2023, after they were executed. Schedule an oral hearing on this matter before the court and, after the hearing, 'declare that the Council's December 13, 2023 'ratification' was erroneous, illegal, arbitrary and capricious and was void.' Schedule a trial on the Declaratory Judgment action, the Open Meetings count and the Certiorari count. Declare that Warner's actions in signing the three contracts and the Council's actions to 'ratify' these three contracts on Dec. 13, 2023 were each 'illegal, … erroneous and void.' Find that Warner, the City of Davenport and the Council failed to follow statutes. Find that Warner, the City of Davenport and the Council violated the Iowa Code. Find that the City of Davenport and Warner violated the Davenport City Code on the stipulated settlement amounts that are allowed by Warner to sign. Find that Warner is personally liable for unlawfully signing the three contracts and causing the 'three extravagant monetary payments' made to Spiegel, Thorndike and Torres. 'Declare that the City shall take legal action to clawback all monetary payments made to Spiegel, Thorndike and Torres.' (A 'clawback' is a contractual provision by which money already paid to an employee must be returned to an employer, sometimes with a penalty.) Award Dr. Allen L. Diercks attorney fees for the council's violations of the Iowa Open Meetings Act. Enter other relief to Diercks that is just and equitable, including court costs and attorney fees. The suit refers to Chapter 21 of the Official Meetings Open to the Public (see the Iowa Code here) that regulates public meetings. Read Chapter 21 of the Iowa Code here. Read Chapter 22 about open records here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
28-04-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Nick Sirianni's first news conference ‘sucked.' Why first impressions are misleading
Editor's Note: This story is a part of Peak, The Athletic's new desk covering leadership, personal development and success through the lens of sports. Peak aims to connect readers to ideas they can implement in their own personal and professional lives. Follow Peak here. Nick Sirianni's first impression sucked. Everyone knew it. Even him. Advertisement When he introduced himself as the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2021, he gave one of the least inspiring news conferences in recent memory — he had nervous delivery, awkward syntax, a preoccupation with the word 'systems.' 'The first part of being smart is knowing what to do,' Sirianni told reporters then. 'We're gonna know — we're gonna have systems in place that (pause) … are easier to learn. 'We need to have systems in place, and we will have systems in place.' The resulting footage went viral. Headlines followed. The sentiments were best summed up via quote-tweet: Really want to see the interviews where someone said "yes, this the guy I want to lead my team" — CJ Fogler 🫡 (@cjzero) January 29, 2021 As it happened, the first impression remained surprisingly durable. In his first four seasons in Philly, Sirianni made the playoffs four times, won two division titles and had the highest winning percentage among active coaches. But before the Eagles destroyed the Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX, few would have ranked Sirianni's among the league's top coaches. Sure, some of it was football. Sirianni oversaw a late-season collapse in 2023, the Eagles organization had won before him, and he coached with a brash, unvarnished persona. (In October, he famously taunted a group of Philly fans after a win over Cleveland.) But at least part of the answer may have come in the form of a century-old cognitive bias called the 'halo effect,' which can cloud our perceptions and negatively impact our decision making. As the Eagles visit the White House on Monday to celebrate their championship, Sirianni offers an interesting entry point to explore two connected ideas: We make snap judgments in seconds, and our first impressions are powerful. They are also often wrong. In 1920, the famous American psychologist Edward Thorndike conducted an experiment. He began by asking a series of military officers to rate their subordinates on traits like intelligence, physique, leadership and character. There was a catch: The officers had never spoken to the soldiers they were ranking. Advertisement When the results came in, Thorndike discovered something intriguing. When a soldier was taller and more attractive, they were determined to be a better leader. When their superficial traits were viewed as negative, so was their leadership and character. In other words, there was a correlation between unrelated negative and positive traits. Thorndike called the phenomenon the 'halo effect' — while the inverse became known as the 'horns effect.' 'The term has been in use in psychology for a century, but it has not come into wide use in everyday language,' psychologist Daniel Kahneman wrote in his best-selling 2011 book, 'Thinking, Fast and Slow.' 'This is a pity because the halo effect is a good name for a common bias that plays a large role in shaping our view of people.' For most sports fans, it's an intuitive idea. Think of the baseball player who starts the season scorching hot at the plate, only to fade in the course of the season. It takes a while for perception to catch up to reality. Yet recent research has shown just how quickly initial impressions can form — and just how unconscious our judgments can be. Alexander Todorov, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago, studies perception, judgment and decision making. He has dedicated much of his career to studying the unconscious judgments about competence that people often make in seconds. In a paper published in 2006, Todorov and co-author Janine Willis found they could accurately predict U.S. Senate elections at a 70 percent clip just by showing people two unfamiliar faces for 100 milliseconds and asking which one seemed more competent. 'A lot of this is built on stereotypes and generalizations from whatever people observe in the world,' Todorov said. The snap judgments can be consequential. In another famous study concerning the halo effect, psychologist Solomon Asch had participants read two lists of adjectives describing two different people. The adjectives were identical, but the orders were reversed. When people heard positive traits first, they rated the person more highly. When the negative attributes came first, their overall impression diminished. It's enough, Virginia Tech professor Juan Luis Nicolau said, to wonder about the utility of introductory news conferences, where coaches are judged on superficial traits — speaking style, presentation, charisma — that are only loosely correlated with the traits needed to be a head coach. When the Eagles hired Sirianni, then an offensive coordinator with the Indianapolis Colts, owner Jeffrey Lurie touted the process. They conducted research, created a list of 25 names and then culled it to 10. Sirianni's interview — held over the course of two days — lasted 10 to 12 hours. Sirianni had never interviewed for a head-coaching job, but Lurie came away with a deep belief: Here was a coach 'who connects with everybody,' he said at Sirianni's first news conference. Advertisement Sirianni was the fifth coach Lurie hired he since bought the Eagles in 1994, and the previous four all made the playoffs within two seasons. If there was a secret, it was focusing on fit and culture. 'The first step, I think, in being a great coach in modern football today — modern sports today — is to care very much about the players and coaches you work with,' Lurie said at Sirianni's first news conference. Sirianni had what Lurie called the 'hidden sauce.' He exuded authenticity and care. He possessed 'an edge.' 'I think he'll be himself, and at times, it will be with an edge,' Lurie said. In many ways, Lurie's scouting report was spot on. When Sirianni arrived in Philly, he brought a swagger. He talked trash on the sidelines (and after games). He wore his emotions like a Philly fan, his mouth agape, his motor running hot. When the Eagles crushed the Giants in the NFC Divisional Round in 2023, Sirianni danced in celebration and jawed with the officials: 'I know what the (expletive) I'm doing.' When the Eagles struggled in a 20-16 victory over the Browns in October, improving to 3-2, he yelled at his own fans. What was less apparent was how he excelled behind the scenes, in the moments of one-on-one connection. He welcomed players into his office for chats. He outlined five core values: football IQ, physicality, toughness, details and connection. He delivered detailed — and somewhat confusing — metaphors about plants. In the last team meetings before games, tight end Dallas Goedert said, Sirianni instituted a tradition. The players would walk around the room and embrace one another. 'The first thing we do in a team meeting is we all stand up, we go around the room and dap each other up,' Goedert said. To long-time Eagles defensive end Branden Graham, Sirianni differed from someone like former Eagles coach Andy Reid, who built culture with gravitas, professionalism and respect. Instead he had his own secret weapon. He talked … a lot. And to everyone. Advertisement 'Even if it's for a split second,' linebacker Zack Baun said. 'We call them bars,' Darius Slay said. 'He got bars.' Instead of ignoring the outside noise, he often leaned in. When it came to leadership, he erred on the side of too much detail. 'Nick over-emphasizes because he wants to make sure that you get it,' Graham said. Perhaps the best way to describe his communication style, players say, is real — and raw. 'He says these things, and sometimes you're kind of wondering what he's talking about,' Goedert said. 'And then, three weeks later, he brings it back up and explains a little bit deeper.' Sirianni was not always the perfect coach. When the Eagles stumbled at the end of the 2023 season, the team's brass responded by overhauling the team's coordinators. He also had to navigate a strained relationship with quarterback Jalen Hurts. But on the whole, the connectivity inside the locker room was what Lurie imagined when the Eagles took a chance on Sirianni. 'It doesn't get talked about maybe that often, but for the Eagles, culture remains the most important thing,' Lurie said. 'And in our world today, there's such polarization, there's such a disconnect between people … It's really valuable to have somebody that innately and genuinely cares about who they work with.' Sirianni has long been honest about his flawed first impression. 'My first press conference sucked,' he said in February. He's also been consistent about the reasons. When he was an offensive coordinator in Indianapolis, he did not train to excel in news conference settings. He focused on helping his players. In another era, his performance may have come and gone, remarked upon by reporters and reported in the daily coverage. But in 2021, the footage was noticed by millions via television, social media and YouTube. Advertisement Fortunately for Sirianni, the halo (or horns) effect is not permanent. It can fade over time, as people receive new information, whether in the form of additional news conferences or, most likely, success or failure. But according to experts like Nicolau and Todorov, it can also offer a few lessons. Sometimes it's worth interrogating your perception. The traits that might help you make a strong first impression are not always the skills that may help you excel in a job. In moments, Sirianni may not look like the conventional leader of an NFL football team. But the Eagles found a Super Bowl-winning coach by asking themselves deeper questions: What are we missing? What really matters? 'Two words,' offensive tackle Jordan Mailata said. 'Walk and talk. He talks the talk. He walks the walk.' Rustin Dodd is a senior writer for Peak, The Athletic's new desk covering leadership, personal development and success. He last wrote about what we can learn about leadership from Gene Hackman and 'Hoosiers.' Follow Peak here. (Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Mitchell Leff / GettyImages)
The Hindu
21-04-2025
- General
- The Hindu
Rethinking education: Moving beyond EdTech and EdBiz to a dialogical, human-centered learning model
In our age of edtech and edbiz, there is an important need to investigate and examine the very concept of education and what it entails. Like all important concepts, even the concept of education has a history through which its meaning has developed. However, the dominant worldview of our age puts content into the term education, and it takes on nuances dictated by the dominant worldview. For example, if we are largely living in a liberal capitalist democracy today, then the content for what education is and should be is dictated by this particular ideology. While this is perfectly fine for those who are happy to live within this dominant framework, it demands extra work from those of us who want to offer something new to the world. In the case of education if we have to move beyond mere edbiz and edtech and its instrumental and transactional nature, then some work has to be done to make visible the deeper and richer understanding of education. Twentieth Century philosophy of education has two major schools of thought — the Behaviourist school propounded by Skinner and Thorndike and the Constructivist school advocated by Dewey and Piaget. While the behaviourist school, like the clay in the potter's hands, states that the learning process should be centred around the teacher and the curriculum, the constructivist school, like the plant in the gardener's hands, argues that the focal point in the learning process is the student, and the role of the teacher is to provide or create the stimuli for the student to learn through experience. While it is true that education requires both a teacher and a learner, both these models privilege one over the other, thus limiting the full possibility of the term. Let us turn to the historical meaning of the term education. The term education when broken into its etymological Latin roots, 'ex' and 'ducere', means 'out' and 'to lead' respectively. In other words, education means 'to bring out and lead forth'. Faithfulness to the historical meaning of education requires a dialogical and symbiotic learning path that acknowledges the equal importance of both teacher and student in the learning process with neither of them having to be at the centre, as the behaviourist and constructivist schools would respectively demand. The dialogical model of education is inspired by three pedagogical traditions – Socratic, Vygotskian and the Upanishadic model. The Socratic method employs questioning to explore the underlying beliefs of the student and encourages deeper discussions on a topic. The Vygotskian method stresses the notion that learning is a collaborative process that takes place in the Zone of Proximal Development, where the student and teacher work together to achieve the best outcome. Upanishad (sitting near) refers to a 'student sitting near the teacher'. The teacher would memorise the specific 'utterances' and then, in a small class with a handful of students, select a specific Upanishad for the day's lesson and recite the 'utterances' to the students. If the student understood, the teacher would move on; if not, the student could ask questions. If education is to bring out and lead forth, then there is commitment and investment from both teachers and students to lead and be led. Once this is clearly understood, then this core idea sets boundary conditions for everything else within the field of education. From policy making to implementation, from strategizing to institutionalizing, from hiring to building teams, every step and process can be clearly defined around this core central idea. The only thing that should differ from one educational enterprise to another is 'what' and 'where' - what to bring out and where to lead forth. However, the 'how' of education should always be faithful to education itself - the art and science of bringing out and leading for. (Dr Brainerd Prince - Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Thinking, Language, and Communication (CTLC) at Plaksha University, Mohali)
