By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
In a 4-3 decision Tuesday, the City and Borough Assembly voted to fire City Administrator Keith Brady.
Voting in favor of the preliminary resolution to remove him from his position and suspend him immediately were Aaron Bean, Richard Wein, Kevin Mosher and Valorie Nelson.
Steven Eisenbeisz, Kevin Knox and Mayor Gary Paxton voted against.
“Basically, I feel Keith is not the man for the job,” said Mosher, who was elected to his first term on the Assembly last October, and who co-sponsored the removal resolution with Bean and Wein. “I feel he has trouble closing issues, deals, whatever you want to call them, and managing staff” Mosher said prior to the vote. .. I don’t desire to be this involved. I don’t think it’s the best practice, but because of my lack of faith in his ability to do his job is why I’ve been so involved, I would like to dismiss Keith, find someone else.”
The administrator serves at the will of the Assembly. Brady, a former county commissioner in Utah, started work as city administrator here on Sept. 5, 2017. He received a satisfactory review by the Assembly in his first annual evaluation as administrator in April 2018.
Assembly member Richard Wein, left, states his reasons for firing City Administrator Keith Brady during Tuesday’s Assembly meeting, as Vice Deputy Mayor Valorie Nelson contemplates her decision and Mayor Gary Paxton listens. (Sentinel Photos by Klas Stolpe)
In his second annual evaluation by the Assembly on April 16 this year he received an “unsatisfactory” rating. In the interval, Nelson, Mosher and Paxton had been elected to the Assembly, replacing Aaron Swanson, Ben Miyasato and Matt Hunter.
The April 16 meeting for the annual evaluation started with a motion by Mosher to terminate Brady immediately, but following a closed door meeting with the administrator the Assembly set aside the Mosher motion and agreed to reassess Brady’s performance in mid-July.
Instead, the preliminary motion to fire Brady was brought forward on June 7, for the June 11 Assembly meeting.
The vote to remove Brady as administrator came at 10:30 p.m., Tuesday night, after a succession of residents voiced their objections to the Assembly’s process, a couple of others supported the removal resolution, and the four members in the majority recited their reasons for discontent with Brady as administrator.
After the 4-3 vote Brady gathered his belongings and left the Assembly table. As members of the public and city staff stopped Brady on his way out the door to shake his hand or talk to him, the Assembly went into executive session to discuss unrelated business, including a settlement offer on a lawsuit in connection with the 2015 Kramer Avenue landslide.
Fire Chief Dave Miller will be acting administrator in accordance with a standing arrangement in which he is first in succession in the event of a vacancy.
Brady was served with a letter notifying him officially of the Assembly’s decision, and the city charter grants him the right to appeal the decision within five days. But Brady said today that he probably would not appeal, and plans to move on with other pursuits in Sitka.
Before leaving the building Tuesday night Brady told the Sentinel he was not surprised by the resolution or the vote, “based on attitudes and individual conversations with (Assembly members).”
“I don’t feel I’ve done anything wrong,” he said. He said he took comments from the Assembly at his recent evaluation to heart, and was working toward a re-evaluation after 90 days. At that time he said, he would have reported progress on such areas as the relocation of the seaplane base, the development of No Name Creek and the hospital merger, among other city projects in the works.
He told the Assembly in a prepared statement before the debate that there appears to be a lack of trust toward staff among some on the Assembly.
“Trust is the basis of a relationship, a partnership,” he said. “We are supposed to be playing on the same team but it seems that we are opponents playing on opposite teams.”
The discussion at the Assembly table followed a number of comments from the public, most of which questioned the process in general and the wisdom of removing Brady. Some said they didn’t feel the current Assembly had been fair to Brady, they hadn’t given him a chance to improve on the job, or given him a “path to success” after his recent evaluation.
“I have no doubt there are aspects he could do better,” said John Dunlap, a 27-year resident. “I find it hard to believe he’s doing the job so poorly that our community would be better off by firing him.”
A number of residents speaking during the public comment period and earlier under persons to be heard criticized the Assembly’s procedure, pointing to the chilling effect the firing would have on city staff morale, the difficulty it would create in recruiting quality staff for open positions and in the search for a new administrator.
“We’ve gotten off track in how we treat our people and how we help them be successful,” said Jim Steffen. “If you let this man go now, good luck on finding anybody with competence to come and apply for the next administrator job because no one in their right mind would come to a community that micromanages individual staff and their city manager like you are doing now.”
Another speaker, Robin Sherman, said: “If this is the way we treat our leaders that’s a message that filters down to the rest of the municipal employees, and is incredibly corrosive to morale, so I would ask the Assembly if they’re concerned about the administrator’s performance, to please give him a path to improve and the resources to do so.”
There was some discussion among Assembly members about holding the resolution discussion in executive session but in response to demands from the audience, as well as from Mayor Paxton, that the resolution supporters spell out their reasons for wanting to fire Brady, they decided to proceed in open session.
Bean said he had a “laundry list” of reasons he supported removing Brady, some of which he said would be more appropriately discussed in executive session. He said he believes Brady lacks conflict resolution skills and cited his handling of police department issues. He said the city has lost staff because of Brady, and that Brady failed to present cuts in the budget as directed by the Assembly, among other reasons.
“It was also mentioned we work for the people, which I would agree with wholeheartedly,” said Bean. “But also, Keith works for this body, and I think – without going into finite details and naming names – that that isn’t what’s happening here.”
Wein said he had attended numerous meetings with other committees and organizations, talked to a number of people, received correspondence and observed staff performance in coming to his conclusion in favor of removing Brady. He cited his main concern as Brady’s inability to “come to closure” on tasks, and improve on the job over the last two years.
“I did not come to this decision lightly,” Wein said. “Having an ability to come to closure after two years in this job to me was very concerning.”
Nelson said at the outset of the discussion that she was “50-50” for or against removing Brady, and knew she was likely making the deciding vote.
“That leaves it all on my shoulders, and it leaves me in a very uncomfortable-feeling position,” she said. Nelson said today she had problems with some of the actions taken by Brady, as well as a comment he made Tuesday night about his feelings about taking Assembly direction.
Eisenbeisz, one of the three opposed to the firing, said he had problems with the resolution, particularly language that suggests the Assembly wants to “pursue a change in city legislative policy and administrative philosophy.” He said it is the Assembly’s role, not the administrator’s, to set legislative policy.
He said, whatever the vote, he had concerns about the future ability of the Assembly members to work together.
“I wonder what happens next?” Eisenbeisz said. “My biggest fear with this resolution is, I fear there’s no way going forward from here. I think people have made very strong comments here that they feel very passionately about – and I will not deny their passion – but I wonder if this resolution is even voted down, if we’re going to be able to work together as a body anymore, if we’ll be able to work with the administrator. I don’t know.”
Knox shared some of Eisenbeisz’ concerns, in particular the Assembly’s ability to work together in the future.
Paxton said this has been “probably the most unusual, difficult thing” he’s been through. He said he disagreed with the process, and spoke strongly against it during the meeting.
“Our town is not happy with us, not happy with the process ... We’ve got some soul-searching to do,” Paxton said. “It’s going to take some maturity for people at this table to figure out a way to move forward and represent our town the way it wants to be represented.”
Also at the meeting, the Assembly voted on a number of other issues leading up to the discussion about the administrator.
The vote to remove the administrator came at the end of a long meeting in which the Assembly also:
–voted 5-2 to approve the budgets for fiscal year 2020 for the general fund, special revenue funds, internal service funds, the electric fund, water fund, airport terminal, Gary Paxton Industrial Park fund, and Marine Service Center and harbor fund, with Wein and Bean opposed.
–voted 4-3 to approve the wastewater budget, and the solid waste fund for 2020. Nelson, Wein and Bean were opposed.
–appointed Tyler Green to the Port and Harbors Commission, Morgan Doubleday to the Animal Hearing Board, and Rich Krupa to the Parks and Recreation Committee.
–heard a presentation on the repaving project on Lincoln Street, from near City Hall to near the traffic light at Lake and Lincoln streets.
–voted in favor of changing the date Sitka Community Hospital employees will be removed from the Public Employees Retirement System and the Supplemental Benefits System, since the closing date of the hospital merger has been shifted to one month later. Nelson voted against.
–voted 5-2 to approve an additional $422,000 in consulting services, professional valuation services and legal services related to the SCH-SEARHC affiliation, with Wein and Nelson voting against. The budget ordinance passed on first reading and will be up for final reading June 25.
-voted 2-5 rejecting a motion by Mosher to put a question on the city ballot that would divide city land sales proceeds between the Sitka Permanent Fund and Capital Projects fund. Currently all land sales proceeds go into the city’s permanent fund.
–approved a budget for continuing to run Sitka Community Hospital an additional month, since the merger between SEARHC and the hospital has been delayed by a month.
–voted 7-0 to change the dates for the seasonal shifts in electric rates by a month, with the higher rate in effect from May through October, instead of April through September. Mosher during a budget meeting made a motion to cut the electric budget by $80,000 to make up for the expected loss in revenues.
–voted to give the Sitka Sound Science Center $25,592 and the Alaska Longline Fisherman’s Association $10,000 from a portion of the proceeds from the city’s “fish box tax” on charter fishermen. Bean voted against.
–approved a consent to assignment for the Fortress of the Bear.
–voted 6-1 to approve the recommendations of the Assembly Position Subcommittee on positions to fill at city hall, with Knox voting against. An amendment passed 4-3 to move forward with the hire of a human resources director, with Bean, Nelson and Mosher voting against.
–after an executive session voted 5-1 for the acting administrator to enter into a settlement agreement with Sound Development lawsuit.
