PORT ANGELES — At a special meeting today, the Port Angeles City Council will discuss whether to hold a public forum requested by a group of community and business leaders.
The city made the announcement Monday and issued an amended agenda.
Today’s meeting was originally to be focused only on steps to be taken to find a successor for City Manager Mark Madsen, not the controversy surrounding his resignation — or the questions raised by City Council members about Madsen that were reported in a Sunday front-page story in the Peninsula Daily News.
The PDN story also raised questions about what was behind the council’s apologetic “mea culpa” statement last Tuesday.
On Friday, Ray Gruver, an insurance broker and a past president of the Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce, delivered to City Hall a letter signed by 60 community and business leaders who requested “a public open forum” with “face to face conversations” between audience members and the council members.
At the public forum, council members “will be asked to respond openly and honestly” to the “hostile work environment” allegations that Madsen said led to his resignation July 9.
“This [public forum] is something that was asked for by a spokesman of that group that has talked to us before,” Mayor Gary Braun said.
“I talked with the city manager this morning [Monday] and asked that we include this because the group asked for a five-day window [for a response] and it was coming up on that.
A public forum will not be held today — the only discussion by council members will be whether or when the forum should be held, Braun said.
“I don’t like to leave these things lingering, so I wanted to go ahead and discuss this,” he said.
Today’s meeting by the seven-member council will begin at 4:30 p.m. in City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
It is open to the public — but no time has been set aside for a public comment session at today’s meeting.
No questions and no statements will be allowed from the audience.
