opinion
july26
2011
An Opinion: It’s Complicated. But Not That Complicated
By Scott Laird
First of all I would like to say
that I am completely dismayed by the
turn local politics has taken in Vernonia.
We, as a whole, have lowered ourselves
to theft, destruction of property,
bickering, name calling, verbal abuse,
rumor spreading, and more. Some of
these acts have been childish, (did any
of you see the anonymous cartoons that
were available for a short time in some
local business? Or the apparently short
lived “Vernonia Truth” website, whose
theories citizens poked holes through,
even though they were anonymous and
didn’t provide any way to respond to
their accusations?). Some have been
down right hurtful, hateful and criminal.
All of this goes both ways—both sides
have been guilty of poor behavior.
How did we get to this point?
One reason is that we are
all extremely passionate about this
community. All of us are trying to do
what we believe will be best for Vernonia
and its citizens. We all take this very
seriously and very personally.
Yet, what we really need to do
is get back to business, back to being
passionate about moving our city
forward and hopefully begin to heal the
damage.
The issues we are dealing with
right now are complex and the reasons
we find our community so divided are
complicated. As I stated in my last
opinion piece, the recall of three City
Councilors is about more than Bill
Haack and Mike Kay.
And yet when you get down to
it, why we are voting on a recall isn’t
all that complicated. In my opinion
it’s about City Councilors that have
refused to acknowledge and listen to the
majority of the voters they were elected
to represent. It’s about Councilors who
have taken bad advice from uninformed
people, or people with an agenda, and
then made decisions about city business
with a bias. It is about City Councilors
who have made inaccurate statements
while representing the City of Vernonia.
It’s about City Councilors who have
been evasive and were unwilling to
compromise. It’s about Councilors who
were thoroughly inexperienced in the
operations of City Management, yet
were unwilling to take direction from
City staff and legal counsel.
All of those things are
unacceptable, in my opinion, from a City
Councilor. And now we are having to
recall Councilors Burch and Nicks.
From the very beginning, I
sensed trouble with this Council. In
early February I wrote an Opinion piece
that hinted that this Council was already
having trouble working with Haack. A
month later I wrote about finding ways
to “agree to disagree,” because we were
developing an “Us vs. Them’” mentality.
A group of concerned citizens began
meeting to discuss ways to help—they
suggested mediation, along with other
ideas. In early April, at the last minute,
I pulled a harshly critical Opinion piece,
hoping to give this Council some more
time.
But what continued to be
obvious was that we had inexperienced
Councilors who did not understand their
role, who were jumping in and forcing
change. And dividing our community.
Early on, in the first month
or so that she was in office, I had a
conversation with Marilyn Nicks in
which I expressed concern that this
Council was going to run Bill Haack
out of town, making themselves and our
entire community look very stupid in the
process. We’re not trying to run him out
of town, was Nick’s response. And now
look at us.
The citizens who are asking
for the recall of Burch and Nicks have
done nothing wrong over the last few
months. They have exercised their
right, under state law, to recall elected
officials that they believe are not serving
our community’s best interests. They
have exercised their right to free speech
by holding legal demonstrations and
posting signs. They have expressed
their opinions by appearing before City
Council and writing Letters to the Editor.
I have reported what has been happening
in Council meetings and published my
opinions. This is our right. We also
can’t control what any and all citizens
will do with information that is provided
to the public. That some people have
chosen to resort to ugliness is extremely
unfortunate and should not be accepted.
Without taking time here to
review all the mistakes that have taken
place over the last six months, all you
have to do is read the Justifications
Statements Burch and Nicks wrote on
the ballot that forced the City to hold the
current Recall Election to understand
what has gone wrong.
Nicks, in her very first sentence,
says she hasn’t seen or verified the
signatures of the citizens that forced
the recall--signatures that are verified
by the County Elections Official. But
once again Nicks appears unwilling to
trust staff, this time its County staff, not
Vernonia staff. Her statement and belief
that Haack withdrew from mediation is
also questionable.
Burch, in her Justification
Statement, claims a Tort Claim has
already been filed against the City due to
Bill Haack’s actions. First of all, no Tort
Claim has been filed—that statement
is just not true. And it is extremely
inappropriate, and irresponsible for any
City representative to comment in any
way about the details of legal matters
involving the city.
Another brief and recent
example—On a public social network
Burch stated that I had access to all
the same information that Council was
reviewing about the Kay investigation.
That statement is inaccurate--the public
and press was not granted access to the
information until after the investigation
was complete and Kay had been
terminated and was subject to public
records request rules.
We
have
inexperienced
Councilors continually making poor and
uninformed choices and statements who
have been given the opportunity, but have
been unwilling, to take responsibility for
their mistakes. Who have insisted on
dragging this town through the mud to
the bitter end.
From the beginning I thought
Council, and the City, would have been
best served if they had extended Haack’s
contract and not disrupted the ongoing
City work with a major change. We
needed continuity after so many changes
over the last seven years. I did not think
starting a search process was the best
idea.
That being said—if Council is
able to locate another candidate, whose
experience, demeanor and personality
is a good fit, I am open to the idea of
considering a change. I want to state this
very clearly, here in print--for me this is
not about rehiring Bill Haack. I want
what is best for Vernonia.
But Council still needs to
weigh, when hiring a permanent
City Administrator, whether further
disruption to city business, by bringing
in someone fresh , outweighs bringing
back Haack, who now has a history in
Vernonia, both positive and negative.
Take the personalities out of it—how
will the city and its citizens be best
served?
As I said before, this isn’t all
about Haack—it’s more complicated
than that. Yet so much of what has gone
wrong here is about the relationship
between Council and Haack-- and what
has turned out to be the key issue that
ruled so much of that relationship—the
issue of the fitness for duty and eventual
termination of Police Officer Mike Kay.
Why did Council choose to
terminate Haack? What did Haack do
wrong?
Again—it’s
somewhat
complicated, but not that complicated.
Ignoring some inaccurate statements
being circulated about overspending,
reserve accounts not being funded, and
unsustainable projects, apparently what
Haack did was try to resolve a personnel
issue that he inherited from the previous
administration--an issue that was on his
desk when he took the job. An issue
which was extremely sticky and posed
a liability threat to the city. The timeline
I published, starting on page one of
this issue, will hopefully give readers
a better understanding of just how this
issue played out.
For a long time I publicly
3
Publisher and Managing Editor
Scott Laird
503-367-0098
scott@vernoniasvoice.com
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defended Mike Kay--went out of my
way to make sure that his side of the
story was being told when he was being
accused of wrong doing. But eventually
the evidence that the city had a problem
became overwhelming. Especially when
the K9 lease was found to be expired and
the certification issues were uncovered.
Haack, by all accounts, is an
acquired taste--he is not everyone’s cup
of tea and his methods are sometimes
unorthodox. Not everyone gets him at
first. But most people have found him to
be effective, his staff have worked well
with him, and he is respected in most
circles in which he works.
Was Haack perfect in his
actions?—no he was not.
With his City Council, and by
Terry’s
Gym
continued on page 14
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