Second in a series.
Re: “Closer Look at the Pulido Story”
Adan Pulido is not your random summer camp coach who floats in when school lets out and reliably vanishes in August.
At 36 years old, he is a known — and liked – personality.
To the distress of parents, Coach Pulido was fired last month by the Parks and Rec department, which did not have to say why because the coach was an at-will employee.
Coach Pulido said he is miffed and more for the following reasons:
- That he was canned without apparent cause, possibly to mollify a seeming profanity-prone veteran supervisor.
- That Parks and Rec Director Dan Hernandez summoned him to a one-on-one meeting, then declined to hear a word from Coach Pulido before he fired him. Only then did Mr. Hernandez ask if Mr. Pulido had anything to say.
- That neither City Manager John Nachbar nor Mr. Hernandez has granted him a post-firing private one-on-one hearing.
- That both have said publicly they can’t comment because of a potential lawsuit when Coach Pulido said he assured each he was not going to sue.
- That he wants an apology from the offending supervisor, which she has refused to give.
The Adan Pulido case may be distinctive from random summer camp coach axings.
He is not fading noiselessly into the night because he appears to be:
- Squeakily honest,
- Amazingly precise verbally, and
- Perhaps more articulate than all the members of any City Hall department put together. His compelling manner of speaking might be able to hold an auditorium full of students or adults spellbound for an hour. Coach Pulido’s rhetorical architecture favorably may be compared by listeners to Frank Gehry’s latest brilliant design.
(To be continued)
This is distressing. My grandchildren think Aidan is wonderful and we’ve been appreciative of the fact that he has always been a wonderful role model for them. If it is true that the head of the recreation department canned him without a fair hearing then I hope all parents / grandparents will pressure the city manager to have a fairer hearing. I have never been fond of highly paid bureaucrats and tenured employees picking on the ones that are most helpful. If Aiden were a teacher and had a union behind him would there have been a different outcome? Rec leaders are professionals and teach our children in the outdoor classroom. Let’s ask for more transparency on this one.