SEQUIM — Police Chief — and now City Manager — Robert Spinks issued a written pep talk on Tuesday “to city staff, volunteers and elected officials.”
Spinks became Sequim’s new boss on Monday, after the City Council fired Bill Elliott three weeks short of his eighth anniversary as City Manager.
The council’s four newest members — Ken Hays, Erik Erichsen, Susan Lorenzen and Mayor Laura Dubois — voted to fire Elliott, while Paul McHugh, who’s been a member since May 2002, cast the lone dissenting vote.
Hays summed up the newcomers’ complaints by saying that Elliott’s management style is too “laissez-faire,” and “simply incompatible with the majority on this council.”
Elliott had cleaned out his office early Tuesday.
He said he plans to find another job, and doesn’t know if it will be in the Sequim area.
Elliott, 65, has worked for five cities, including Sequim.
He started work in Safford, Ariz., moved to The Dalles, Ore., then worked in Coos Bay, Ore., and then in Milton-Freewater, Ore.
“I do thnk about [retirement], but I just don’t know if I want to yet,” Elliott said.
By Tuesday morning, Spinks, who had worked with Elliott in Milton-Freewater, Ore., had sent a seven-paragraph memo to city workers.
“I view Bill as a mentor,” he wrote. “This interim appointment for me is extremely painful.”
Yet “we have over 6,000 stakeholders to serve and 63 employees . . . whose professional careers and families depend on us.”
In fact, the city of Sequim has 72 employees, said City Clerk Karen Kuznek-Reese.
What it doesn’t have, besides a city manager, is a public works director, nor a plan for where to locate the new City Hall that was supposed to be under construction this year.
Spinks, however, sought to encourage his staff while warning them about his personal style.
