Port Angeles city manager resigns, cites council rifts

PORT ANGELES — Mark Madsen has quit his job as city manager, citing a “hostile work environment.”

Madsen announced his resignation in a letter addressed to Port Angeles Mayor Gary Braun, and placed in council members’ mailboxes, on Wednesday.

News media received copies of the letter after business hours at City Hall.

Madsen wrote that he had enjoyed working with the city staff for the “past three-plus years” but that the situation changed early this year, “especially over the past two months.”

It amplified a four-page memo he wrote to council members last week in which he said he might resign if rifts within the council didn’t heal.

“The conduct of certain individual council members in relation to fellow council members, city staff, members of the community and other entities in the community have materially and significantly impaired the ability of the city manager to manage the affairs of the city and have created an untenable, hostile work environment,” Madsen wrote in Wednesday’s letter.

As with last week’s memos, he declined to identify the council members.

He also refused further comment Wednesday evening.

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