Yachats City Council tries a little self-evaluation of its first six months of work — and it does not go well

 

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

During a week when the lone employee in Yachats City Hall struggled to even answer the phones, it probably wasn’t the best timing for Mayor Leslie Vaaler to ask council members to evaluate their first six months of work.

But she did during a workshop meeting Thursday.

It did not go well.

“We have been in epic fail mode much of the time,” said Councilor Ann Stott, who was elected last November and took office in January. Stott, who was a high school civics teacher for 30 years, gave herself and the council a grade of D-.

“I’m certainly not very happy and not enjoying this experience,” said Councilor Greg Scott, who was also elected last November, but had served 11 years on previous councils. The last six months have been the worst of all those years, he said.

“I don’t find it at all fun either,” admitted Vaaler, who had been a councilor for two years before her election as mayor last fall.

All three – Vaaler, Stott and Scott – ran last November on platforms critical of city management and of operations and oversight and decision-making by the previous council.

It’s probably fortunate that the city’s two main endeavors – providing water and treating sewage – are functioning well and the city is flush with money from lodging taxes. But that may be about it.

Massive staff turnover

In March, there were five employees or contractors working at City Hall. Three of those have left without being replaced and the city is on its second interim city manager, Katherine Guenther, who started in March working two days a week as the city planner – and still serves in that role.

The council ended the city’s contract with a regional government providing financial services this winter, but has struggled to find a replacement – and for months even agree on a job description or to advertise an accounting position.

Now, during a one-week recruitment, it could hire that person during a special meeting Wednesday after Guenther interviews three candidates Monday and Tuesday. But it’s a pick the council has to make because Guenther is not authorized to hire anyone.

Once a city priority, code enforcement has also dropped by the wayside as TCB Security of Newport is now is unable to provide more than eight hours a week of service – all done by one of its employees from home.

And several of the city commissions – which are intended to do the bulk of the initial work on planning, city facilities, the library, streets and water – are beginning to grumble more about not having city staff available to help them get stuff done.

So when deputy city recorder Kimmie Jackson went on vacation last week, that left Guenther alone – save for the occasional volunteer who dropped by to lend a hand. Phone calls to the city were often transferred to an answering service, which usually does that on nights and weekends.

That played into Guenther’s frustrations later in Thursday’s meeting when Vaaler tried to move the council’s discussion into projects – like water security — the city should be addressing.

“This topic just seems so far in the future to me,” Guenther broke in to say. “I don’t know if you know … we’re limping along here. We can’t answer the phones here. As much as I would love to discuss this topic, it’s making me crazy to think about this.”

Scott jumped in again to say the city cannot address any long-term issues “until we have a functioning staff.”

“… we need to deal with the basics of delivering services,” he said. “We’re still trying to figure out how to pay the bills and answer the phones.”

Anthony Muirhead, who was appointed in February to fill Vaaler’s council position and is the only council member who is not retired, said he was “still figuring out” council policies, goals and procedures. But he said the council “needs to be better.”

“Get the city in order as far as staffing” goes,” Muirhead said. “… it’s our responsibility to have a fully staffed city.”

Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey, who was appointed to the council 16 months ago, was much easier on the council, praising them for stepping up to volunteer their time during a difficult transition. Her only suggestion for improvement was that when the council starts discussions leading to decisions it needs to finish them and not stray off on other subjects. She later told YachatsNews that she thought Scott’s comments were too harsh.

City manager recruitment

Some of the council’s frustrations were apparent when it tried to discuss, again, its stalled recruitment of a new city manager.

The council decided in April that it would not use a professional recruitment firm – as many local governments do – to save $20,000 and have more control over the process. But it has been unable to agree on everything from the wording of a recruitment brochure to how, when and where to advertise the job and who or how to screen applications. Its request to a local resident to do all that work was turned down.

As a result, there has been no progress on finding a new city manager – a process that can take 3-6 months under the best of circumstances.

Councilors did schedule a special meeting for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday to try to finish work on the job description and recruitment letter. Muirhead and Stott said the meeting should be short, to the point, and not a fight over every word and phrase in what is essentially a recruitment letter and not a hiring decision.

“Look at what we’ve produced and get it out the door,” Muirhead said.

“I don’t understand … this ad posting is just a little detail,” said Stott. “We’ve been talking about this for four months.”