This post has been updated as of 1/11. See italics below.
Yesterday Council member Dave Ward and incoming Mayor Debbi Lester delivered a document to City Hall, signed by both of them, directing that an item be added to the agenda in Executive Session at Wednesday’s Council meeting: “Review Employee Performance.” The closed session is scheduled to last 2 hours at the conclusion of the meeting (at approximately 7:50 p.m.), and already included two other matters, “Current and potential litigation” and “Collective bargaining negotiations.”
Under the Council/Manager form of government, the only employee whose performance may be reviewed by the Council is the City Manager.
The Ward-Lester action occurred less than 24 hours after the Council retreat on Sunday where the new Council committed to conducting themselves under the collaborative and transparent principles of the Governance Manual.
“Creepy” is how Council member Sarah Blossom characterized the missive, saying she didn’t know who “Mrs. Johnson” is. Anne Blair called it “abhorrent…a zero” and worried that discussing it would give it unwarranted credibility. Dave Ward said it was in poor taste but Council members can’t control the inappropriate behavior of 25,000 people.
Steven Bonkowski focused his concern on the forwarding and copying of the email, saying it “needs to stop” because such emails have no bearing on “what we’re doing.” He admitted that one of the issues in his campaign was whether current City government is the government that people wanted, and said he saw the Governance Manual as the vehicle to address that, rather than the sending of letters.
Debbi Lester said she didn’t know who Mrs. Johnson is or what the letter-writer’s intent was, but noted that she gets many emails from citizens offering guidance, including some who were in the room at the retreat. “Are we going to parade every one of those out?” she asked.
Bob Scales said his concern with both the Johnson letter and the Knobloch memo is that they indicate activity going on “behind the scenes” in disregard for the Governance Manual as well as laws on transparency and open decision-making in the public sector. He said the Johnson letter purported to speak with access to the power that can only come from the Council.
Hytopoulos added that the Johnson letter should be put into context, coming only a few weeks after the Knobloch memo made headlines. The memo, which was discovered in December on a City Hall copier immediately after outgoing Council member Bill Knobloch had used the same copier, declared that the new Council members had “four out of seven votes lined up” and could “announce a management policy change, perhaps a shake-up in the CM or CA offices.”
Scales suggested that the string-pullers behind both communications may well be connected to the Ratepayers lawsuit, a significant piece of litigation against the City. He said that a Kitsap Superior Court calendar on which the Ratepayers lawsuit was listed was found in the copier along with the Knobloch memo.
After affirming their independence and intent to adhere to the Governance Manual, members of Council seemed to reach a consensus that they won’t let questions fester in the future, and will work on better communication with each other, City staff and the community. Later in the day, there was a brief discussion about the process by which the City Manager’s performance should be reviewed, when people seemed to agree that they would develop standards and criteria for the evaluation. But there was no suggestion at the retreat that any discussion about her performance was in the offing.
Under state law, a discussion to craft performance standards cannot be held in a closed session, so it seems that either the Council will discuss the City Manager’s performance in Executive Session or participating Council members will be violating state law.
The addition of the Performance Review item came as a surprise to Hytopoulos, Scales and Blair. (I also sent emails seeking comment to Blossom and Lester, but neither one has responded.) Update 1/11: Sarah Blossom replied, saying she was surprised a performance review abruptly appeared on the agenda this week, but added, “As far as the topic goes, I don’t think it’s any surprise that the council should, and wants to, have a discussion.”
Reached by email on Tuesday, Blair had this to say:
“Last night I spoke with newly-elected Mayor Lester and expressed my surprise, disappointment, frustration and profound sadness that this important topic was part of our agenda when less than 24-hours before, I believe we all had agreed to honor the both the Principles and the ‘operating procedures’ set forth in the COBI Governance Manual. With our affirmation of the Governance Manual I anticipated that we would work collaboratively, without surprises and in a manner than respected the community and our own sense of fairness and openness in government. I also have asked Dave and Debbi to meet with me so I can better understand the rationale for this addition to the agenda.”
Members of the public are concerned as well. One long-time islander, James Quitslund, has already sent an email to the Council wondering “when the door closes at 7:50 tomorrow night, who, in addition to yourselves, is stalking in the room.”
“I find ‘Review Performance’ of the City Manager (or any other member of the Executive) in a secret session only ten days into 2012, with no agreed-upon and publicly understood processes and policies to govern that Performance Review, patently improper and invalid. I cannot imagine how you have maneuvered yourselves, or allowed yourselves to be maneuvered, into this situation,” Quitslund wrote. “…[i]f you feel the time has already come for the campaigners’ masks to fall and the gloves to come off, please understand your obligation to show your true colors to the community. Then the populace which elected you can see what its choices in the last two Council elections have wrought. We will then have an opportunity, within the process, consistent with the concept of representative government, to let you know to what extent we believe that your actions are in the community’s best interests.”
If you want to air your views on this dramatic start to 2012, you can email Lester at dlester@bainbridgewa.gov and Ward at dward@bainbridgewa.gov. Or come to Wednesday’s Council meeting at City Hall, 7 p.m. (public comment is at 7:10). Make your voice count. Use it.
