By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com
The Yachats City Council showed Wednesday what can happen when an inexperienced and mostly rudderless group is working with an inexperienced city planner asked to also be the interim city manager.
After two hours of disorganized and often acrimonious discussion during a special meeting, the council was able to decide how to proceed with advertising for a new city manager and to hire a former contractor to fill a deputy city recorder position to handle some basic accounting and administrative work.
But 90 minutes of the two-hour meeting that focused on hiring a new employee involved no presentation background, basic facts, proposals and spending recommendations and ended up with bruised feelings – and one councilor angrily leaving — and feeding the impression that the council and city is foundering.
Several longtime council observers said afterwards that it might have been the worst council meeting they’ve ever observed.
“Bizarre,” one said in a message to YachatsNews.
Agrees to advertise manager job
The council is on its second interim manager after the departure of Shannon Beaucaire in April. Rather than hire a search firm, the council elected to conduct the search itself in order to save $20,000 and have more control over the process.
But for months it has struggled to agree on a job description and advertise the position. Last week it called a special meeting for Wednesday to finally get that work finished.
Approving a basic ad and where to place it came quickly. But consent broke down over who should collect resumes, who should answer any applicant questions, and if Mayor Leslie Vaaler or someone else should screen applications.
Councilor Ann Stott said Vaaler should not be the only one getting applications and screening candidates, alluding to the process by which the city’s first interim manager Lee Elliott of Texas was hired. He lasted three months and in retrospect accomplished little.
Vaaler said five people have already formally or informally contacted her about the job, either sending along resumes or asking basic questions. But Stott complained that she and other council members have no idea who they are or their qualifications.
“People involved in final decisions should not be involved with handling resumes,” Stott said. “Let’s make sure each councilor is given a copy of each of the resumes.”
Councilor Anthony Muirhead thought it was not appropriate for interim city manager Katherine Guenther to collect the applications if she intended to apply for the job. Guenther, who is also working two days a week as the city planner, has not said publicly whether she intends to do so.
After more discussion, including unanswered, basic questions over use of executive sessions to screen and discuss candidates, the council agreed to have deputy city recorder Kimmie Jackson collect resumes, answer basic applicant questions, and send other queries to all council members for a response.
The job was posted Thursday.
Hiring city hall help
The discussion really ran off the rails during the council’s deliberations over Guenther’s recommendation that she be able to hire Anita Sites as deputy city recorder to handle basic accounting chores and do other administrative tasks that the city is struggling to get done.
Guenther told the council that three people applied for the job, two with government and accounting experience and Sites. But one dropped out before they could be interviewed, and a second told Guenther on Tuesday that she would need to be paid $76,000 a year and that she intended to apply for the city manager’s job.
That left Sites, who worked in city hall for nearly a year under a contract with an employment agency and who won high marks from some council members for her work. Elliott ended her contract during his last week of work in early June.
But she does not have accounting experience.
Janet Cline, the city’s finance consultant, and Councilor Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey said they interviewed Sites and called references and felt she could easily learn to handle accounts receivable and payroll.
Muirhead, the only councilor with business experience and still working, objected to hiring someone for an accounting position who did not have accounting experience. But he said there should be room for Sites and her talents at city hall in two other jobs the city has open or tried at one time to fill.
“If we’re going to have someone be our accountant, they need accounting experience,” he argued. “I still want to hire her (Sites) … I just want to put her in the position to be the most helpful.”
The council’s discussion broke down after that. Guenther pleaded for help for an office that once had five employees but is down to two. Vaaler wondered if there was money in the budget – which is flush with lodging taxes and having spent little on city hall staff or operations — to hire Sites, or a community services coordinator, or the applicant who asked for $76,000.
That led to an extended discussion over the salary for the deputy city recorder – which was never mentioned in the posting – and whether it was a union or non-union job.
That’s when Stott’s frustration began to boil over.
“We need to have a lesson in the city manager form of government,” she said shortly before leaving the online meeting. “We need to get back to making policy and let our city manager make decisions.”
While Vaaler said she was ready to vote on the issue, she then began to question whether she actually knew what the job entailed. “I don’t understand what the position is,” she said 90 minutes into the two-hour meeting.
That drew more frustration from Guenther, who two weeks ago brought a job description to the council, had it approved, advertised and conducted two interviews and reference checks.
After more confusion over pay and talk of a salary range for the job, a motion to hire Sites was defeated on a 2-2 vote, with O’Shaughnessey and Stott voting yes and Vaaler and Muirhead voting no. Councilor Greg Scott was traveling to Wyoming and did not attend the meeting.
O’Shaughnessey pleaded for help for Guenther and Jackson, saying “This can’t continue. We’re in trouble.”
“What we need is someone to answer the phones and answer questions (from the public),” Guenther said.
That’s when Stott left the meeting without saying a word.
Kept talking it over
But rather than end the meeting, councilors kept talking.
Cline explained again that Sites is capable of learning the basic accounting needed and that she can teach her. Guenther explained how that would work and what other chores she would help with.
But Vaaler continued to say she didn’t understand what the position would encompass.
“Are you suggesting that what was posted is not what the council saw a month ago?” Guenther asked in frustration.
Guenther and Cline again explained how Cline would train Sites to do the basics and then hand off more complicated end-of-the-month financial duties to the financial consultant.
With that, Muirhead made a motion to offer Sites the deputy recorder/accounting position with a starting salary of $48,600 – a detail that most councils would leave up to their city manager.
It passed 3-0, with Vaaler saying she voted yes “with some hesitation.”
Muirhead said he was glad the council was able to resolve the hiring issue. “It just took some time to get there.”
The position that was advertised was not the position the Council supported and ultimately approved. A full accounting position was advertised but at the meeting a Deputy City Recorder with some financial elements was proposed and ultimately voted on. I suspect that led to Mayor Vaaler’s confusion. Frankly, if the whole thing had been better presented by Guenther, there wouldn’t have been confusion. There should have been an actual proposal in the form of a report or memo from Guenther that provided details instead the whole thing, and past meetings, are usually done on the fly.
Thank you Quinton for an accurate analysis and public report of the sad predicament of our current city leadership.
Let’s hope we will finally be able to get another competent City Manager who can return good management to city operations, if the council can limit themselves to their policy making role and stop trying to micro-manage the city manager who is hired to manage city operations.
An able experienced manager will welcome the opportunity to develop their own staff team.
It is my understanding there are experienced managers interested in Yachats however they could not apply until council finally, after 3-4 months, made the position available.
If “…the council agreed to have deputy city recorder Kimmie Jackson collect resumes, answer basic applicant questions, and send other queries to all council members for a response.”
Then why does the job posting on the city website have this:
QUESTIONS: Contact Mayor Leslie Vaaler at mayor@yachatsmail.org.
TO APPLY: Email a cover letter and resume to: mayor@yachatsmail.org.
I moved here in October 2020. In spite of the city hall issues, I’d like to reflect on the many reasons to love Yachats:
1) The moderate temperatures
2) The Siuslaw National and State Forest to the south, including the awesome Cape Perpetua trail system
3) The volunteers who do so much to keep our city trails intact and the flowers looking awesome.
4) The whales – what a sight!
5) The beaches – miles of clean beautiful beaches to walk on, run on, bike on, fly a kite on, enjoy time with family and friends on.
6) The excellent bakery, coffee shop, fish and chips restaurants, brewery, and dispensary.
7) The cleanliness of the town.
I’d like to say to our city council and mayor – thank you for the role you play in keeping our town a great place to live.
It is a sad predicament, that after having a “professional” city manager for half of a decade, the City is without a succession plan, and is forced to improvise their way through this mass exodus. I don’t want each City Manager to develop their own team. I want a City Manager who develops written roles, responsibilities, processes and procedures for each position, and that all employees follow them by the book. I want the City Manager to, not just manage day-to-day operations, but to provide for continence of operations, even without a City Manager. Perhaps succession planing should be included in the City Manager’s job description.