Resignations, buy-outs depleting Longview city administrative staff

Council was warned about fallout from its actions to fire city manager, hire retired police chief

At the May 9 Longview City Council meeting,  Mayor Spencer Boudreau scolded the council’s three-member minority for voicing concerns that the chaos created by the new council will chase city staff away.

Apparently the mayor wants them to hold their tongues while the city’s senior administrative team collapses.

Three executive/cabinet level officials have announced resignations recently, including two in about the last week. The resignations, an upcoming retirement and a vacancy are draining the majority of the city’s executive leadership.

City Attorney Dana Gigler, who has been at odds with new council for refusing to accept her legal advice, submitted her resignation last week. She accepted a six-month buyout offered by acting City Manager Jim Duscha that likely will cost the city in the range of $100,000.

Gigler, who has extensive experience in civil and municipal law, had worked  previously for the Cowlitz County Prosecutor’s Office and the state Attorney General’s Office.

In addition, Assistant City Manager Ann Rivers resigned effective today after receiving a six-month buyout proposal from Duscha.  Rivers, who also is a state legislator from Clark County, has been at odds with state Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, an ally of the council majority. She did have supporters throughout the city staff.

“I am, of course, disappointed. I had hoped to retire in Longview. It’s such a great community,” Rivers said by e-mail Monday. “It was very clear that there was a strong desire by many on city council, and also the (interim) city manager (Jim Duscha) for me to leave. It doesn’t make sense to stay in a place where one is not wanted, and, therefore, can be easily become the fall guy for issues not under one’s purview.”

She said she was proud to bring Divert, a new employer, to the city, reforming the community development department and positioning Longview for industrial growth.

These two buyouts likely will cost the city at least $150,000 and likely more.

It is not certain where money for the buyouts will come from.  Councilwoman Angie Wean said Sunday that Duscha had not officially notified the council about them, although she had learned of them through informal means.

Duscha has power to fire and hire city staff on his own, but it was unclear whether the City Council must approve non-budgeted expenses, such as severance payouts.

Duscha did not return my call for comment to explain why he wanted the resignations.

I doubt he acted without at least the tacit approval of some members of the council’s four-member majority —Mayor Boudreau, Kalei LaFave, Erik Halvorson and Keith Young. In public statements, Duscha has taken issue with critics who have called him a hatchet man for the majority bloc. But these two requested resignations are exactly what his critics and the council minority said he would do.

Despite frequent denials, that bloc came to power in November with a clear and  undisclosed agenda to clean house, even though turnout in the election was only 38 percent.  And they’ve acted on it despite pleas from former city managers,  mayors, city employees and citizens that they risked expensive lawsuits, staff resignations and other consequences if they followed through.

The departures of Gigler and Rivers are the latest in a series of resignations that started last month, when David Wallis, the city’s director of information, left to work for Lower Columbia College. 

LCC recruited him when it saw the turmoil in Longview city government. Wallis is not just a computer IT geek. He was hired last year to do program and operations analysis and save money and improve efficiency.

People like him are hard for small cities to recruit. But his marriage to then-mayor MaryAlice Wallis gave heartburn to the neocons in the community, despite the fact that the process was open, vetted by two separate review panels and that neither the council nor the mayor had a say in the 2023 hiring decision.

At about then time Wallis departed, the city’s only land use planner, Mac Kosar,  left the city for a job in Bremerton.

Kosar and Wallis declined to be interviewed on the record about their reasons for leaving. Gigler did not reply to my request for comment. 

However, I’ve confirmed that all of them are leaving due to the turmoil and conflict that have followed the council majority’s vote to fire City Manager Kris Swanson without cause and appoint Duscha, the city’s retired police chief, as interim manager on March 13.

In addition to these staff losses, the city has been without a fire chief since Jim Kambeitz retired in November.

It likely will take several months more before the city can recruit one. The Daily News reported last week that Duscha rejected the two remaining candidates. One of them, Rainier Fire Chief Jerry Cole, told the newspaper that he was concerned about the turmoil on the council and that he may not have been a good fit anyway.

The city also will lose Public Works Director Ken Hash to retirement next month.  

The city also has no finance director, because Swanson served that role in addition to being city manager.

The city’s leadership team — the cabinet, so to speak — now will be down to Police Chief Robert Huhta, Parks and Recreation Director Jen Wills, Human Resources manager Sabrina Fraidenburg and Library Director Jacob Cole.

This is a crisis entirely of the council majority’s making. And it has never articulated a clear or valid justifications for it other than vague and bogus talk about transparency and public calls for change. The public certainly does not want or need the chaos and conflict the council has created.

Instead of scolding  the minority members about it, Mayor Boudreau should lecture some citizens about the vulgar and abusive language they’ve become accustomed to using in council meetings.

The council’s three-member minority bloc had warned the majority about this fallout. Those councilors — Wean, Ruth Kendall andMaryAlice Wallis — had opposed Duscha’s appointment due to his lack of city administrative experience and the council majority’s lack of transparency in appointing him.  

Duscha is a longtime ally of Councilwoman Kalei LaFave, who has resisted calls to start the search for a new, permanent manager.  She and her council allies keep urging the council to “give him a chance” to learn the ropes and push a search off until next year.

Sorry, the city should not be paying a retiree with limited job experience nearly $180,000 a year for “on the job” training.   

And the new council certainly did not give Swanson — who won stellar job performance reviews from the previous council — any chance to prove herself to new members before firing her without cause.

Any time an organization loses an employe it is a loss — in experience, training and, usually, in competency. In addition to those losses, this council has made the city vulnerable to lawsuits and incurring unnecessary expenses. It has subjected itself to allegations of violating the state Open Public Meetings Act and damage claims from Swanson.

Swanson now is interim city manager in Battle Ground and has purchased a house there. Her lawyer continues to negotiate with the Washington Cities Insurance Authority — the city’s liability insurer — over her claims for civil rights violations and breach of contract.