SEQUIM — After the hiring and unhiring of Vernon Stoner, this city is making a second run at finding a chief.
The Sequim City Council is reconsidering two of the final four candidates for city manager: Steven Burkett, a consultant who’s run larger municipalities from Shoreline to Tallahassee, Fla., and Mark Gervasi, a former schoolteacher who’s run small Oregon towns, including his current city of Tillamook.
In the wake of Stoner’s selection Sept. 1 and the series of revelations about his recent past, the pair has been subjected to deeper-than-typical background checks, Sequim City Attorney and interim manager Craig Ritchie said Friday.
In a Peninsula Daily News investigation earlier this month Stoner, until June the chief deputy of the state Insurance Commissioner’s Office, was found to have been named in a sexual-harassment tort claim filed by his former executive assistant.
Shellyne Grisham filed her claim May 14; Stoner, who was fired by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, worked his last day for the state agency June 15.
On Aug. 31, one day before the Sequim council voted to make Stoner its next city manager, the state of Washington paid Grisham a $50,000 out-of-court settlement.
Stoner has said that he knew nothing of Grisham’s claim, nor of the out-of-court settlement that resolved it.
Stoner, who is 61 and black, is now suing the state for damages up to $20 million. His contention is that age or race discrimination led to his firing.
Ritchie, after conducting further research into court records concerning Stoner’s employment history, met with the City Council — which originally had planned to sign Stoner’s employment contract, which included an annual salary of $120,000 per year, Sept. 14 — in closed session last Monday.
Upon emergence from the session, the council voted unanimously to end its relationship with the man who was to have filled a 16-month-wide hole at the top of city government.
Search for top manager
Sequim has been without a permanent chief since May 5, 2008, when four newly elected council members formed the majority vote to fire Bill Elliott.
The council’s searches for a successor have fallen on rocky ground. The members tried to hire one of three finalists who came to town last November, but couldn’t complete contract negotiations.
Then they hired Waldron & Co., a Seattle search firm, to recruit a city manager, and Waldron brought Sequim four more finalists: Stoner, Burkett, Gervasi and Subir Mukerjee, the former Olympia deputy manager who has since withdrawn from consideration.
Waldron did not inform the council of the sexual-harassment claim against Stoner.
The company’s background check “did not reveal any performance issues or information which lead us to feel that Mr. Stoner is not a suitable candidate,” Waldron vice president Lane Youngblood told the PDN on Sept. 4.
After Stoner’s issues with the state Insurance Commissioner’s Office came to light, the council members expressed their disappointment with Waldron, which the city paid $20,000 to vet city manager candidates.
Owner Tom Waldron said that in 25 years as a recruiter, he’d never had an incident such as the one that befell Sequim.
Last Monday, the council members said they would “postpone further selection discussions” until their Oct. 6 meeting.
Council sets meeting
But at the end of last week, the council scheduled another closed session, to “evaluate the qualifications of city manager candidates,” next Friday at 12:30 p.m. in the Sequim Transit Center, 190 W. Cedar St.
“We’ve done additional work, [checking] additional references and answering additional questions from the council,” about Gervasi and Burkett, Youngblood said Friday.
Ritchie, meantime, said he’s conducted a search of court records, “looking for nasty lawsuits.”
He said he has also phoned Gervasi’s staffers in Tillamook and Burkett’s former employees in the cities where he has worked.
“I haven’t gotten all of the court records yet,” Ritchie said.
But by next Friday he expects to present the council with an updated report on the two hopefuls.
Ritchie offered a forecast for Friday’s meeting: The council may choose one of the two and move forward with contract negotiations, or say more information is needed.
Then again, “they could say ‘Let’s start over, with more candidates.'”
Council member Bill Huizinga is hopeful about a rapid resolution.
“It’s a shame we have to do this again,” he said Friday, adding that he was less than satisfied with Waldron’s performance up to this point.
“But that’s in the past,” Huizinga said; he’s inclined to look forward.
As Sequim moves into budget-development season — Ritchie will deliver a financial report in early October — the city labors under a gaping revenue shortfall of as much as $850,000, with layoffs and cuts in services looming, some staffers say they’re feeling the strain.
‘Roller coaster ride’
The city-manager saga — “a roller coaster ride” – has taken a toll on morale, said Associate Planner Joe Irvin.
What happened with Stoner was another in a series of disappointments, he said.
Irvin emphasized that his colleagues are a dedicated group and that he is proud to work for the city of Sequim.
But without “clear, defined leadership,” Irvin said, the city’s employees are working without a long-term vision.
The Public Works Department, the city’s largest division, was also, until this spring, without a permanent director for more than a year.
Shortly before longtime director James Bay retired in April 2008, Jeff Robb was hired — but then Robb changed his mind and stayed with his current employer, the Port of Port Angeles. He’s now the port’s executive director.
In May, Ben Rankin, the former city engineer in Clemson, S.C., was chosen by then-interim city manager Linda Herzog. The permanent Public Works director has been on the job since June.
Herzog, however, finished her nine-month contract on Sept. 2, and despite rave reviews from staff and council, is moving on.
Ritchie, for his part, sees the city’s financial woe wearing on the workers.
“Most of the angst comes from the budget,” and the uncertainty ahead, he said.
Speaking of himself in the third person, Ritchie, who sails in his free time, added: “Fortunately, they have a city manager right now who’s trying to keep the boat headed into the waves, so we don’t sink.”
________
Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladaily news.com.
