Yachats city manager resigns effective May 31, citing personnel issues, misinformation and council interference

 

By KENNETH LIPP and QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews

YACHATS — The Yachats city council Wednesday announced the resignation of city manager Heide Lambert effective May 31, its plan to hire a contractor to assist during the transition and a professional consultant to find her replacement.

Following a 90-minute closed, executive session to discuss the matter, mayor Craig Berdie said during a brief special meeting that Lambert gave her 60-day notice April 1 and her last day will be May 31.

“She will be missed and it will be challenging to find a replacement,” the council said in a statement. “We are extremely grateful for the work she has done for our city in establishing systems and operational improvements including capital improvement processes and budgeting.”

Lambert joined Yachats city staff on Valentine’s Day of last year, ending a 10-month stretch during which the city had no full-time manager and a skeleton crew at city hall. Her predecessor, Shannon Beaucaire, resigned in April 2021, similarly a few months after the election of a new mayor and city councilors

Beaucaire’s departure was followed by the departure of an interim city manager and then two key staffers, leaving city hall in disarray. The pursuit of a new chief administrator stretched on as the council opted to conduct its own low-cost search. That homemade approach cost them their first chosen candidate, who withdrew her application in a four-sentence email criticizing the search process as unprofessional.

Lambert, then a Waldport city council member, had been one of three finalists for the job in September 2021 but withdrew her application when she decided she could not leave her position as executive director of CASA of Lincoln and Tillamook Counties in the middle of a budget crisis. Several months later, she said that crisis had passed, and she approached the Yachats council to ask if they would reconsider her application.

Lambert’s initial two-year contract carried a salary of $90,000 a year, the usual retirement and medical benefits and 20 days of vacation a year. She received a $5,000 raise and a $5,000 bonus after her nine-month evaluation in November.

Berdie suggested Wednesday the council should contract with the Lane Council of Governments to act as its recruiter, refining the job description, compensation and “values” sought. He said he would also seek details on services provided by private recruiters. Lambert promised to work with whomever the council found to help with the transition until she leaves.

Councilor Greg Scott said previous recruitments have been hurt by failure to act quickly enough.

“If we have any hope of being more successful this time, the process needs to be much accelerated,” Scott said. “It’s once the ads are out there and people start to submit, that’s when the critical clock begins.”

Stalled job recruitment

While Lambert brought a potentially more orderly process to large municipal endeavors, her 14 months in the job were marked by conflicts or confusion with the city’s unusual commission system, delays of even the smallest projects, and the struggle to re-staff city hall while dealing with a discrimination claim by the deputy city recorder.

Tension increased when Berdie and Catherine Whitten-Carey, former members of the Parks & Commons Commission, took office in January after campaigning last fall on more accountability and project progress from city hall.

Matters regressed over the past three weeks when four temporary staff at city hall resigned over frustrations with stalled job offers and lack of communication with Lambert.

But in her resignation letter, Lambert said that a special March 29 council meeting to clarify interim manager/planner Katherine Guenther’s move back to just planning on a part-time basis had damaged staff relationships and “created a mob like mentality at city hall against me.”

“Currently I feel it is unsafe for me to continue to work at city hall with a group of women who are ganging up together to publicly spread misinformation about their positions at city hall,” Lambert’s letter said. “I am alarmed at the attention they have commandeered from the council. The council’s lack of understanding of their role in staffing undermines my leadership.

“My job is to manage city operations, making difficult and commonly unpopular decisions with the support of the council,” the letter said. “But after watching last week’s behavior of certain councilors and staff, I no longer feel I can effectively lead this city and I am at great risk of being tied into another claim against the city.”

Scott and councilor Ann Stott said Wednesday that Lambert was the best possible hire for the position a year ago but had been “dropped into an unwinnable situation” at city hall.

“I have never worked with a city manager I have more respect for,” said Scott.

Constant staffing issues

Lambert arrived 14 months ago to just two other people in city hall – Guenther who had just started the planning job before she was thrust into the interim city manager role, and Dayna Capron, who had been hired through a temporary work agency as an office manager.

Over many of next 12 months, as the city often struggled to pay bills, answer phones or collect money, Lambert asked for patience to get staffing and operations back on track. She appeared to be on her way last fall with the addition of several temporary and contract workers making $20 to $22 an hour with few or no benefits.

With the help of an outside personnel consultant, Lambert posted four city hall jobs in February. She was on the cusp of filling them when that came to an abrupt halt in late March. The personnel consultant sent the four applicants – all working in city hall as temporaries – an email saying the process was stopping because of unspecified budget issues.

That followed a March 6 confrontation in city hall between Yachats Brewing owner Nathan Bernard and three staff members when he came to pay a water bill. Code enforcement officer Jyl Feuling approached Bernard asking him to meet with her about his need for a business license and an occupancy permit. That erupted into swearing, angry words – some by a city hall staffer – and Bernard being forced out the front doors.

Following a staff meeting two days later to discuss how that was handled, city coordinator Neal Morphis, who had been working sporadically via a labor contract, walked off the job.

Feuling, who had been working two days a week under a temporary city contract since November, resigned April 3. Lorraine Barrett, who was working as an administrative assistant/receptionist under a labor contract since late January, resigned April 4.

Capron, who had learned to do utility billing and most other jobs in city hall since her hiring in October 2021, resigned Monday. That followed her comments to the city council during public testimony last week pleading with them to explain and resume the city hall hiring process.

“We wanted to do good for the city,” one of the departed staffers told YachatsNews. “It’s heartbreaking.”

On top of the stopped hiring process and fallout from the confrontation with Bernard, there were frustrations with Lambert’s management, absence from the office for most of March and little to no face-to-face or email communication.

Remaining in city hall are Guenther, who by contract is scheduled to go back to a 16-hour work week, deputy city recorder Kimmie Jackson, whose discrimination claims are being recommended for dismissal by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, and Diane Grover, who was the remaining temporary employee handling payroll, accounts payable and some other finances until she was officially hired as a city employee Wednesday.

• Kenneth Lipp is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at KenLipp@YachatsNews.com
• Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com