By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
It only took two days for the impact of Tuesday’s election for Yachats mayor and two City Council positions to have an effect.
On Tuesday, Yachats voters overwhelmingly elected Councilor Leslie Vaaler to become mayor in January, when she defeated incumbent John Moore by more than 200 votes — 434 to 232.
And voters replaced two incumbents – Max Glenn and Jim Tooke — elected without opposition in 2016 with two council critics, Ann Stott and former councilor Greg Scott. Stott took first with 337 votes, Scott was second with 334; Glenn had 252 votes, Tooke 167, and Dawn Keller was fifth with 166.
All three will take office in January. The new council will then have to appoint someone to fill the remaining two years of Vaaler’s council term.
On Thursday, during its monthly workshop and regular meeting, the council deferred discussion or put off potential action on several issues – potentially a massive budget increase for enhanced security services, changes to how council and commission minutes are kept, and seeing if it wants a vendor to monitor vacation rental licenses.
With just 2-3 meetings left in the year, Moore and councilors agreed that it would be best to leave it up to the new council to decide if it wanted to take up those issues.
The council did vote unanimously to seek bids on reconstruction and paving of the newly-named La De Da Lane.
But the major divisive issue Thursday — foreshadowing issues with the new council in January — was a 3-2 vote to approve an immediate 6 percent salary increase for City Manager Shannon Beaucaire.
Moore, Glenn and Tooke voted for the raise. Vaaler and Councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey opposed the raise – as did Stott and Scott, when they were asked to comment.
Moore, Glenn and Tooke praised Beaucaire’s performance, as evidenced they said in three years of good council evaluations – which have never been made public. Moore also revealed that because of budget constraints Beaucaire had taken 12 unpaid days this year – but still worked them — to avoid asking staff to cut their hours.
“We are very, very fortunate to have Shannon Beaucaire as our city manager the last 3 1/2 years,” Moore said.
Tooke said the city manager’s pay raise was due to the quality of her work, but acknowledged “I know there’s some people who might disagree.”
Beaucaire was hired in October 2017 at $72,000 a year, plus benefits. A year later the City Council gave her raises totaling $20,000 in addition to cost-of-living increases that all city staff get each July. In 2019, the council gave Beaucaire a $5,000 bonus, rather than a salary bump. Her salary is now $98,000 a year.
Moore said the latest raise was also fair because the city was not paying health insurance for her domestic partner, Mark Shepherd, while state law requires it to cover spouses or same-sex domestic partners. That amounts to $6,000 a year, Beaucaire said.
Vaaler, O’Shaughnessey, Stott and Scott countered that including benefits, the city manager was more than adequately paid.
“I don’t think in this time of COVID and tight budgets is the time to be going beyond the cost of living,” Vaaler said. “We’re paying her what the community can reasonably afford. We’d be making a mistake to make a large increase.”
Stott said the issue wasn’t about performance but whether Beaucaire is “appropriately paid, which I believe she is.”
Scott, who clashed with Beaucaire before resigning from the council in 2018, was more blunt.
“I view the election as a community response, a report card, about leadership,” Scott said, saying the new council should determine Beaucaire’s pay. “I think it’s inappropriate for this council to make that decision.”
The raise also has issues should the new council decide to part ways with the city manager. If Beaucaire is terminated, her contract says the city must pay her six months salary at her highest rate plus all unused vacation time.
In post-election statements to YachatsNews on Wednesday, Vaaler, Stott and Scott all said the large turnout and results of Tuesday’s election was a “clear message” and “obvious voice” for change.
“I read the margin of votes in the Yachats election as a very clear vote of confidence by the Yachats community for a change in city leadership,” Scott said. “What remains to be decided is the scope of the change, the process of making many of the decisions and how this will be communicated to the public.”
In her statement Vaaler said “With 675 votes tabulated for mayor and with a large number of votes cast in the council race, our citizens delivered a clear message. I congratulate newly-elected councilors Ann Stott and Greg Scott on their victories, and I look forward to working with the entire council to govern wisely and with integrity, taking time to listen to our people.”
Hoping to see transparency and more equality in decision making plus appropriate pay for a job done
In response to the discussion of an increase in wages for Shannon, I would like to add that the average teacher wage in Oregon is $61,900. Teachers have entire classrooms to teach at whatever level each child is when they receive them. They also have to please parents, administrators, and the community. Many of these teachers have masters’ degrees or higher. This is nothing against Shannon, but I think that Shannon’s salary already exceeds the value of the position. I also see no reason why the city manager or the code enforcer cannot manage the vacation rentals. It is time to put a brake on some of these expenditures in Yachats at least until the virus is over and our people are back to working.
Why not use Zoho Performance Management Software to quickly and easily create a performance management system for all staff?
Doing this will make it easy to see, visualize, and analyze the relationship between pay and performance. This can even be done for city council members and the mayor, and would produce better accountability and information for Yachats voting citizens.
The FY21 budget states under goal 6: “ Completion of Organization/HR Work”
This can be done real quick using HR/Performance Management software.
It would also can help make the processes involving Council, Mayor, CM more transparent and ensure any conflict of interest is more easily visible and account for.
“a massive budget increase for enhanced security services”
What? Enhanced security services for whom?