Many Fort Lauderdale city employees are extremely angry at Mayor Jim Naugle for "being anti-staff and totally antagonistic" toward city workers, according to a recent city-sponsored survey. Anyone who spends time around City Hall has heard this all before, but now, with an election coming up, it's time for the voters to know.

The employees made their comments in confidential surveys done at the request of City Manager Floyd Johnson as part of a study of working conditions. The employees were free to comment about any elected official, manager or co-worker. More than 100 pages of comments were submitted.

Here is a summary of the employees' comments about individual members of the City Commission:

What follows are unedited excerpts directly from the survey forms. We did not leave out any positive comments about Mayor Naugle ... there weren't any.

It is totally disheartening to have the mayor of your city and your commander in chief to continually berate you for the job you are doing. It is well known that on more than one occasion he has stated that we are not worth the money the city is paying us and he does not miss an opportunity to try and reduce our pay and benefits. Why doesn't he do his job and give us some effective leadership instead of constantly berating us? It is quite apparent that the leadership is missing at the very top of this organization.

The mayor has no respect for the city employees.

As a long-term management employee it is demeaning and insulting to hear Mayor Naugle criticize and impugn the integrity, professionalism, and performance of other managers at every commission meeting. He never has anything positive to say about the workforce except when it is self-serving for him to do so. Such as at his annual "state of the city" self promotion speech. Naugle publicly accused employees of lying and deceitful practices. He complains we are overpaid and distorts our compensation by creating lists of the 100 and 300 highest paid employees that include the city's contribution to social security and pensions and then leads the public to believe the total compensation figure he gets from this to represent our salary.

Several years ago the city did a similar survey to this. When the Mayor received it he publicly tossed it in a trashcan at a commission meeting [SEE PHOTO], today the same Mayor still serves. I have very serious doubts that anything other than liability issues will change.

The fact that the mayor has publicly expressed his contempt for the city employees is very unprofessional and should not be allowed. He should be reprimanded or penalized and made to stop this behavior in all forms.

The mayor contributes to the melee through his belittling and berating of employees and his total inability to "work and play well with others."

I would like to see the Mayor's office back up the police department and the code enforcement department. More time should be spent defending our actions to the public instead of paying attention to some ridiculous complaints. Put more credence in the city employees.

City commission and especially the mayor do not appreciate the city employees' contribution to their constitutions. Mayor always down on employees creates a poor morale for the entire workforce.

It galls me when the mayor is openly contemptuous to staff in an apparent effort to denigrate George Hanbury. The mayor has apparently backed off somewhat since Floyd Johnson took over, but my confidence in him is about zero. I realize he is a politician, but he's the head of a city with 2400 employees trying to do the right thing the message he often sends to us by his words is not helping matters.

The tensions between the past city managers and mayor filtered through the ranks of the organization. The mayor's notoriety for being anti-staff and openly antagonistic has been debilitating effort on staff morale and management.

On paper fort Lauderdale looks like it has everything good to offer, retirement benefits, a health insurance plan, vacation and sick leave benefits, monthly recognition programs, training, career advancement opportunities. With all that's going on, why are there so many unhappy people? It's simple, senior management does not know how to manage. A mayor who publicly criticizes employees at every turn. A city manger and a commissioner who wants to recognize those employees in terms of how much could be saved if they weren't there anymore. Fiscal responsibility? And interesting concept, but too difficult to implement. It's easier to leave positions vacant so you can realize salary savings. The arrogance started at the top and is working its way down.