example, it states that elected officials who
“attempt to influence the manager” in “any
removal of city personnel” can themselves be
removed from office. There is no penalty for
the city manager or his staff crossing the line
in the charter into dictating city policy.
city organization and will lead to a perception
of “tacit acceptance” of council bashing by
top city managers. She said she was “skepti-
cal” that Taylor was really requiring that staff
respect elected officials because, “I’m not
seeing it played out in the organization.”
‘It’s symptomatic of a deep cultural
problem with a city manager system
that really has no accountability.’
—P AUL N ICHOLSON , FORMER COUNCILOR
Unelected city managers in Eugene have
appeared to frequently cross that policy line.
In 2004, former Eugene City Manager Jim
Johnson gave a city committee on economic
development a list of “How to Get Something
Done in Eugene.” Under “will happen” he
listed “city manager is excited” about the
change. Under “won’t happen” Johnson
listed “city manager not excited.”
The harsh charter provision on personnel
issues complicated the handling of Carlson’s
e-mail, making a quiet resolution difficult.
The charter does include a provision allowing
councilors to discuss any matter, including
removal of city personnel, in open public ses-
sion. Bettman said she brought up the issue at
a public meeting for that reason.
The charter also does allow the council to
fire the manager, but that provision has been
very rarely used in Eugene. “It’s like foreign
policy where the only alternative is the big
red button,” Nicholson said.
Manager Taylor said he has always told
staff “how important it is to respect democ-
racy.” He said he will investigate the matter
with Carlson and take appropriate discipli-
nary action if needed, but will not tell anyone
what personnel action he took.
Bettman said that secretness will prevent
the manager from sending a strong “zero tol-
erance” message on such disrespect to the
Bettman also questioned whether Taylor
knew about Carlson’s offensive e-mail for a
month but failed to act. Initially, Taylor said
at a council meeting he did know about
Carlson’s e-mail a month earlier. Later,
Taylor said he didn’t know about the e-mail
until Bettman complained about it.
At the April 17 council meeting where
Carlson’s e-mail was discussed, Taylor urged
councilors not to discuss the issue at the
council “process session.”
Kelly said that it was “really unfortunate”
the manager said that as it conveyed the im-
pression that he was trying to “suppress dis-
cussion” of the problem.
Ideas to reform the city manager system
to make it more respectful, responsive and
accountable to citizens have been circulating
for decades. The ideas include allowing the
council to hire an independent performance
auditor to provide objective information, put-
ting the powerful city attorney under the con-
trol of the council and/or giving the council
authority over the hiring and firing of depart-
ment heads.
But developers, The Register-Guard and
other pro-developer interests have generally
opposed reform. Nicholson said, “Obviously
they want a system that’s responsive to them
instead a bunch of crazy people that get
elected.”
ew
APRIL 20, 2006 13