Garibaldi manager shakeup

Garibaldi’s city council approved a separation agreement with City Manager John Schempf on April 15, agreeing to pay him just under $29,000 in exchange for release from potential legal liability.

Council also approved the hiring of Bay City Mayor Liane Welch as city manager pro tem, with a contract period of three months.

The negotiated separation with Schempf came after the city delivered a letter of potential termination for cause on March 22, citing his confrontational style with city councilors, employees and vendors, as well as inaccuracies on his resume.

Schempf responded to the complaints at a meeting on April 2, arguing that the complaints from vendors had come after he had stopped them from taking advantage of the city. He also said that he felt the potential termination was based on a poor performance review received in March and that the reasons cited were pretextual.

A lawyer retained by Schempf also appeared at the meeting and argued that the city’s letter did not meet the terms of Schempf’s contract and that his client was protected by whistleblower laws from retaliation by the vendors.

In a meeting on April 9, the council voted to place Schempf on administrative leave, delaying a vote on his potential termination while negotiations continued between lawyers for the parties.

At their regular monthly meeting on April 15, the council was presented with a separation agreement that had already been signed by Schempf for review and approval. Both the city’s attorney and a staffer at the city’s insurance carrier had reviewed and okayed the document prior to the meeting.

Councilors voted unanimously to approve the agreement, with Schempf receiving three months’ pay or $28,791, in exchange for his agreement not to sue the city for any and all claims arising out of his employment. The city agreed not to comment in response to queries from potential future employers and will not be making contributions towards Schempf’s benefits.

Following approval of the agreement, Mayor Katie Findling said that the council now needed to decide on how to proceed towards the goal of operating the city with a stable staff, balanced budgets and no outstanding audits. “How we are going to get there is the question we now face,” Findling said.

Findling said that the city’s code allowed for the council to appoint a city employee to serve as city manager pro tem, assume the duties of the manager themselves while they searched for a replacement or to hire a pro tem manager. Findling said that the city’s staff did not have the time to take over the extra duties and voiced her unwillingness to take over the duties again, as she had last summer prior to Schempf’s arrival.

Given those constraints, Findling said that she had been in contact with Bay City Mayor Liane Welch about taking over the position and the two had agreed to terms, pending council approval.

Welch served until last summer as the city manager for Bay City, after previously working as the director of Tillamook County’s public works department. Welch assumed the mayoralty in Bay City in January of this year, following the resignation of Mayor pro tem Kathleen Baker.

Welch appeared at the meeting and said that her goal was to help Garibaldi get to its next step and that a primary focus would be on helping the council recruit a full-time replacement.

Numerous members of the public voiced their support for Welch and said that they wished she would accept the position for a longer period, before the council voted unanimously to approve her hiring.

Welch began in the role on April 17, and will work 30-32 hours a week for the next three months at a rate of $55 an hour.