If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it

By Bob Fortner

Last year’s Council “fixed” the water utility problems…high rates were reduced to those proposed by the KPUD, overhead was reduced and a trial period was established. The Utility Advisory Committee would review operational data quarterly and report to Council in June 2013.

Without waiting for or seeking operating data, Council members Bonkowski, Ward and Blossom with the support of Mayor Lester are pursuing early re-engagement with KPUD regarding management or ownership of the City’s Water Utility. Using 5 years of financial reports, Bonkowski alludes to data on the other city utilities compared with water to support his contention that all is not right with utility management and therefore the early re-engagement is justified.

Perhaps in his relative newness here, he fails to factor in that the previous Finance Director was dismissed in August of 2010 after 6 years of fiscal obfuscation which contributed to our near bankruptcy. Bonkowski may have found what he believes are discrepancies or a “straw man” to justify divestiture. Basing the reengagement decision on an analysis of those records, without a previous examination of current data, seems inconsistent with his experience in the business world.

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Council/City Dysfunction

Update 7/12–for a brief report of this item at last night’s council meeting, see my comment, which is third in the comment stream below.

I am reprinting below Gloria Sayler’s excellent piece on Council overreaching and disrespect of staff, which she sent out on her Island Observer listserv yesterday. To her analysis of possible violations Governance Manual, I add the state statute that prohibits Council members from giving orders to subordinates of the City Manager. 

The chip seal contract is back on the agenda for tonight’s Council meeting. It will be interesting to see whether Interim City Manager Morgan Smith will offer support for her Public Works Director, in light of the aggressive micromanagement by Council member Dave Ward.

Many important issues have been discussed in recent Council meetings but the question I am frequently asked is “Why is the Council/City so dysfunctional?”  Of course, there is no single reason but I think I understand some of the elements. First, government, even in our small City, is more complicated than one may think at first or second glance.

Another reason, related to the first, is on display almost every Wednesday night – the time involved.  Most weeks the Council meeting lasts 3-5 hours. If you think about any meetings you attend, most people have a difficult time maintaining their focus after the 2^nd hour.

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Is the law still the law if you refuse to hear it?

At tonight’s presentation about the authority of Council members under the Council-Manager form of government by Seattle lawyer Steve DeJulio, Mayor Debbi Lester and Council members Dave Ward and Steve Bonkowski quickly shut down Council member Bob Scales when he tried to ask questions about the authority of individual Council members to act without a Council vote. Council authority has been a raw question since Lester, Bonkowski and Dave Ward hired a law firm to give advice about firing City Manager Brenda Bauer without obtaining a vote of the full Council. DiJulio’s presence was at Council’s request following the dispute over that issue.

DeJulio gave a crisp one-hour briefing on the laws governing the power and functioning of local government in our state. He told Council it has legislative authority to act by motion, resolution, or ordinance. A significant responsibility is to adopt a budget, also done as a legislative body in open session.

DeJulio explained that, under the island’s Council-Manager form of government, the Council has legislative authority, and the power to appoint the City Manager. State law specifically prohibits the Council from interfering with the decisions of the City Manager. The statute requires that the Council deal with staff solely through the Manager, except for purposes of inquiry, or at public Council meetings.

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Council mania: live blogging 2-15-12

I’m at the Council meeting tonight, starting to blog at the agenda item, “2012 Workplan Priorities.” Morgan Smith presented a list of high priority items for staff, including resolving outstanding labor claims and negotiating a new police guild contract, Rockaway Beach stabilization, increasing the annual roads preservation support by 50%, and updating the water and sewer utility plans. She also identified work the Council agreed on at the council retreat, which include an allocation process for the WSF funds, roads planning and police accountability. Click here for the list: 021512_2012_WORKPLAN_CC_021512

Melanie Keenan and Malcolm Gander informed the Council that they submitted a draft grant to Ecology for $200,000 to clean up the Unocal site. They want the Council to put the grant on the work plan. They mentioned that they’d been in touch with Dave Ward about this.

Barry Peters reminded the Council that the UAC brought forward a recommendation to examine the SSWM fee structure and recommends that the Council put that on its work plan.

Debbi Lester moved to affirm the proposed work plan, Bonkowski seconded. Passes unanimously. Bob Scales is absent from the meeting.

Anne Blair suggested if there is a plan to divest the water utility this year, it needs to be on the work plan.

Kirsten Hytopoulos says that to have a full conversation of the cultural element they need to have more information. We don’t know who will be our manager, or whether we will be manager-less, she says, so she doesn’t think they should open up broader conversation about the social services or the cultural element. They just don’t have the capacity, even though that conversation is overdue.  She says, we’ve lost the opportunity of having a conversation this year about who we are and where we’re going by undertaking a city manager search this year.

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A timeline of deceit and improper action

From their first days in office, Dave Ward and Steven Bonkowski, along with two-year council veteran Debbi Lester, executed a plan to fire City Manager Brenda Bauer. The plan was developed and acted upon behind closed doors, without lawful authority. All three denied the existence of any such plan when publicly asked by council colleagues.

The timeline:

January 1, 2012 (Sunday)–Newly elected council members Ward, Bonkowski, Sarah Blossom and Anne Blair take office.

January 5 (Thursday)–Ward calls the offices of Inslee Best and speaks with firm partner Rod Kaseguma about Bauer’s Employment Agreement. “Mrs. Johnson” sends an anonymous email to Bauer, telling her she was about to lose her job and should resign rather than wait to be fired.

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Ward, Lester, Bonkowski secretly hired law firm for Bauer firing

Update 2/10/12: I have checked the Council’s meeting minutes. Although the threesome claimed they engaged Inslee Best on Debbi Lester’s mayoral authority, she was not mayor on the day the firm was hired (Jan. 5). She was elected mayor at the Council meeting on Jan. 11, when most of the firm’s work was already done. Although under our Council-Manager form of government, the mayor is ceremonial and has no more power than any other Council member, this debunks the threesome’s main argument that they acted lawfully.

 In a remarkable display of inexperience, Council members Dave Ward, Debbi Lester (who is also taking a turn as mayor this year) and Steven Bonkowski engaged the law firm of Inslee Best in January for advice about their plan to fire City Manager Brenda Bauer, without informing the full Council or the City Attorney.

At last night’s Council meeting, Councilor Bob Scales revealed that according to an Inslee Best bill, Ward, who took office at the beginning of the year, contacted the firm on January 5 to discuss an employment agreement. By law, the City Council has authority over only one employee, the City Manager, and it became apparent during the ensuing discussion that the law firm was retained for advice about Bauer. Click here to read the bill: Inslee Best invoice.

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After Bauer, a hard reality

Yesterday a “Transition Addendum to Employment Agreement” was posted to the City Council’s next meeting agenda. With it, the word is out: City Manager Brenda Bauer’s time with the City of Bainbridge Island is indeed coming to a close. Although the Addendum isn’t effective until the Council votes on Wednesday night, it signals that the Council, which has been meeting in extended, closed Executive sessions over the past several weeks, has reached an agreement with Bauer on the terms of her departure from the City.

The skulking, anonymous Mrs. Johnson of threatening-email fame was correct back in the beginning of January when she sneered that Bauer’s “employment is coming to a close.” She was also right when she wrote “you do have a choice on how you leave.” But Bauer’s choices have turned out to be much better than Mrs. Johnson’s resign-now-or-you’ll-be-sorry taunt.

In fact, judging by the generous terms of Bauer’s leave-taking, she might have had a taunt or two of her own (I’m guessing it was along the lines of “until you find a new manager, you need me more than I need you.”) Under Bauer’s original Employment Agreement, she was entitled to six months’ severance if she was fired without cause (which is narrowly defined in the contract). If she quit, she got nothing. Hence, Mrs. Johnson’s effort to entice her to resign.

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Ward, Lester add “performance review” to Wednesday’s Council agenda

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.

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“Mrs. Johnson” sends ultimatum to City Manager

“Time is not your friend.”

So wrote the pseudonymous “Mrs. Johnson” in an email to Bainbridge City Manager Brenda Bauer yesterday, telling her that she can resign from her City position in exchange for assistance finding a new position, or wait to be fired and “not have our our support.” Claiming that Bauer’s time with the City is “coming to a close”, Mrs. J told her she has no choice on whether to leave her City employment, but still has time to choose the terms—voluntarily or involuntarily.

The emailer, who writes as if s/he is in-the-know with a majority of Council and can offer assurance as to the actions the City will take, is apparently hoping the City can avoid the terms of Bauer’s employment contract. That contract requires the City to pay severance of six months’ salary if she is fired without cause (“cause” is defined by the contract). If she could be induced to resign, she would get nothing. 

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Knobloch’s parting shot

At last week’s City Council meeting, four new Council members–Sarah Blossom, Dave Ward, Steven Bonkowski and Anne Blair–were sworn in, and four others–Hilary Franz, Barry Peters, Bill Knobloch and Kim Brackett–were bid warm good-byes. Sadly, the occasion was marred by some good old-fashioned political hackery. A memo (posted below) surfaced at the meeting, purporting to give advice to an unnamed voting bloc of four on the incoming Council, on such statesmanlike topics as the lying habits of City employees, how to force a management shake-up at City Hall, and how to sandbag Council opposition. 

According to information obtained by Inside Bainbridge, outgoing Council member Bill Knobloch was behind the memo. Inside Bainbridge quotes City Manager Brenda Bauer as saying Knobloch used the copier at City Hall and “immediately after he left, [a] staff person who walked past him into the room to use the copier found the document in the originals tray. They shared it with another staff person or two who came into the copier room, and then it was given to me.”

When contacted by Inside Bainbridge, Knobloch denied responsibility, saying, “I am not the author of that document.” Knobloch added that “we should not be conjecturing about something that we had no way of knowing,” and repeated that the accusation was “totally false.” Inside Bainbridge reported that he “questioned the reasoning behind sharing the document at the Council meeting: ‘What good is that especially since it was a festive evening?’” I’m willing to entertain the idea that he didn’t write it, or wasn’t the only author, but at the very least it seems clear he was involved with crafting and conveying the message.

I got my hands on it after the Council meeting and was so disgusted I wrote the email below to members of the new Council. I promptly received two or three emails from another citizen who has been active in trying to shred the City for the past couple of years (I can’t bring myself to name him, but let it be said he loves to clog our inboxes with his anti-everything musings.) This citizen gave it the old spaghetti on the wall trick, throwing up as many defenses as possible to see what sticks. His argument boils down to one point: this is politics, honey, so get used to it.

As to the voting bloc to whom the memo is addressed, an educated guess would be the three new members whom Knobloch publicly endorsed: Dave Ward, Sarah Blossom and Steven Bonkowski. The identity of the fourth might be gleaned from the public reaction of Debbi Lester, who has been aligned with Knobloch on several hot button issues in the past few months, such as divestiture of the City’s water utility and the swamp surrounding the in-sourcing of the Civil Service Commission’s Secretary/ Chief Examiner position. After I read the memo, I communicated with Councilors Hytopoulos, Scales, Franz and Peters, who were uniformly disgusted and outraged. In contrast, Lester made light of the episode when contacted by Inside Bainbridge, saying, “Everybody should go have some eggnog and chill out.”

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