Council bloc's secrecy, rash action hollows out campaign promises to improve transparency

Decisions to fire Swanson, hire Duscha have put city in legal jeopardy

Citizens of a democracy should expect four things when their government takes action:  

1. Transparency and fairness.

2. Open mindedness

3. Merit-based hiring

4.  Respect for differing opinions.

The new, four-member majority on the Longview City Council struck out on all counts by hiring former police chief Jim Duscha to replace Kris Swanson, whom it fired without cause on the same night (March 13).

Their actions have frightened city staff, put themselves and the city in legal jeopardy and substituted cronyism for merit. Their behavior has hollowed out their campaign pledges to improve transparency.

Kalei LaFave, Keith Young, Erik Halvorson and Mayor Spencer Boudreau clearly colluded to fire Swanson and appount Duscha the interim manager.

There was no prior open council discussion of Duscha’s interest or  qualifications. The council did not even discuss a process to replace Swanson. The majority bloc presented no letter of application, no resume,  no documentation of any kind to support Duscha’s fitness for the job. 

It was clear from the beginning that Duscha was a slam dunk because he is political buddies with members of this new majority, especially LaFave.

Duscha, who retired in 2020, is unqualified to run a city with an annual $200 million budget and 400 full, part-time and seasonal employees. He was at best an undynamic, average chief over nine years. About a year ago he was turned down in his application to become director of Cowlitz County’s 911 emergency dispatch center, a department that is a fraction the size of Longview city government.

How Duscha got appointed police chief in the first place is interesting in light of some complaints — including those of Mayor Boudreau— that Swanson was promoted from assistant city manager to city manager last March without a search. (Longview has always hired its city managers from within, with one exception:  Ed Ivey, hired in 1987.)

Duscha got tapped as police chief in 2011 largely because the rank and file had problems with the two previous chiefs   — Californians Bob Burgreen and Alex Perez. When Perez stepped down, the staff asked that the next chief be promoted from within the department.  So Duscha got the job without any broad search for a new chief.

Despite pleadings from the minority and the public, the council majority refused to consider alternatives offered by other members and the public, such as hiring an interim city manager through consulting firms. The city of Yakima just did that recently, hiring Dave Zabell as interim manager from GMP Consultants.

The council majority also refused to appoint Assistant City Manager Ann Rivers as interim, even though state law expresses a preference — if not an outright mandate — to hire the interim manager from within the city’s top administrative ranks. 

Tapping Rivers also would have saved the city the $177,000 salary it has agreed to pay Duscha.

This council has fired a woman without cause; it bypassed the woman who was a natural and logical substitute. Civil rights lawyers must be salivating to take a bite at the city, especially if Duscha fires Rivers, as many expect will happen.

Swanson’s lawyers already have filed notices of a lawsuit, and her claims likely will go beyond just one for breach of contract. 

Swanson’s contract requires a “supermajority” of five votes to fire her, while the council majority cited state law in acting with just four. They will be personally liable if the courts rule in Swanson’s favor in this apparent conflict of state and contract law.

Other legal punches have started flying. At 2 p.m. today (Wednesday) in Cowlitz Superior Court, a first hearing was scheduled to take place in a lawsuit in which former City Councilman Mike Wallin and others allege that the foursome violated the state Open Public Meetings Act (OPMA) in how they chose Duscha and negotiated his contract. Thie hearing was postponed a week because the visiting judge could not make it to Cowlitz Superior Court.

Wallin on Tuesday wrote to Cowlitz County Prosecutor Ryan Jurvakainen, asking him to refer the case to the state Attorney General for investigation.

The lawsuit could put this council in a pincher. 

On one hand, the four-member bloc could argue that any private discussions about firing Swanson and hiring Duscha took place before the three new members were sworn into office in early January ( Halvorson took office in late November). As unlikely as this scenario may be, such timing could shield them from a charge that they held an illegal “serial” chain of meetings to arrive at a de facto decision.

Asserting that the idea to fire Swanson and hire Duscha arose in each of the four council members individually, as if by immaculate conception, shatters credulity.

However, then they would be guilty of a gross —  if perfectly legal — ethical violation: concealing from voters and the public their intention to fire Swanson — a  major, disruptive and legally fraught action. They’ve denied assertions that they plotted her ouster when questioned by the other council members. They didn’t raise this goal during last fall’s election debates — unless you count such vague statements as wanting to “change direction.” 

They can’t have it both ways. Asserting that the idea to fire Swanson and hire Duscha arose in each of them individually, as if by immaculate conception, shatters credulity.

Stop the gaslighting.

Denials that they haven’t discussed this in advance also undercut their assertion that they’re doing voters’ bidding. If these specific ideas weren’t talked about or discussed, how would they know the public wanted them? 

The secrecy that still shrouds their resolutions to fire Swanson just adds to the suspicions of collusion.

This whole affair has been full of distortions intended to justify firing Swanson. None of them is valid or sufficient grounds for termination, but Boudreau and the three new members of the council are following the lead of the Trumpist Cowlitz 4-C Coalition, headed up by Cowlitz County Commissioner Arne Mortensen and Castle Rock’s Larry Crosby.

The group has attacked Swanson over Hope Village, even though the council, on a 6-1 vote, approved it because the public was demanding action to close down the squalid Alabama Street homeless camp. It’s clear that these critics just don’t want to spend public money on the destitute.

 (The council newbies can’t legitimately make a case that the November election was a referendum against Hope Village, because Councilwoman Ruth Kendall, one of the housing project’s chief advocates and planners, won re-election by a substantial majority.)

The 4-Cs have screamed about nepotism over Swanson’s April 2023 hire of David Wallis, the husband of former Mayor MaryAlice Wallis, as the city’s IT chief. An extensive search — including interviews by two separate screening committees — ranked Wallis the best applicant. Should the city bypass a superior candidate because of his marital status? Is doing so fair — or wise?

The 4-Cs should look in the mirror. Mortensen engineered a change in the structure of the County Planning Commission that dismissed a commissioner who had served three decades and replaced him with anti-tax activist Tim Shea, a 4-C member. 

So much for concerns about cronyism.

The 4-Cs also have distorted the facts about the 2022 discrimination suit that two IT workers —  who both ae  Chinese-American emigres — filed after Swanson laid them off in 2020. The city admitted no wrongdoing in a 2023 settlement that paid out about $900,000 for lost wages, general damages and attorneys fees. Most of the money came from the city’s insurance pool insurer, the Tukwila-based Washington Cities Insurance Authority.

City officials say the two were let go because their jobs were no longer needed and the city could save more than $100,000 annually by contracting out their work. The case was settled months before the scheduled trial in federal court. There was no verdict or ruling against the city, contrary to statements one of the plaintiffs, Ian Wang, made during the March 13 council meeting. 

This is a complex case and I’ll write more about it in a future column. But it’s hard to keep from raising an eyebrow when the Trumpist 4-Cs profess any concern for immigrants.

If the new council members wanted such radical changes, they should have been honest about them up front. And they should respect and work with the three-member minority. LaFave and Halvorson didn’t even comment last week when council members Kendall, Angie Wean and MaryAlice Wallis raised concerns about Duscha’s contract.

I still can’t understand why these newbies have the hubris to reject the advice of former city officials, the array of current city workers and the bipartisan collection of citizens who have counseled them against taking rash action.

A council can’t function well with such discord and dishonesty. Employees will quit and be hard to replace. Bad decisions will made. The city’s reputation and recruitment of businesses will suffer. 

We’re taught by English writers John Milton and John Stuart Mill that truth emerges from an honest and free discussion of competing viewpoints. Honesty and openness are prerequisites for civil dialogue. So far, those qualities have been woefully lacking in the council’s new majority.