After months of delays, Yachats council agrees to advertise for accounting and office help, but balks at immediate hire

By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews.com

After months of dithering and delay, the Yachats City Council took a first step Wednesday to get help for the two beleaguered employees in City Hall.

The council gave permission to interim city manager Katherine Guenther to post one, possibly two jobs — and maybe seek a new person for a contract code enforcement. But the council turned down Guenther’s request to hire a former contract worker, Anita Sites, to fill one of those jobs immediately.

The council has been discussing City Hall staffing – including finding a new city manager — for months, but has not advertised any of the discussed jobs. And Guenther has also not moved to fill the community services coordinator’s job, which has been vacant since the resignation of Heather Hoen two months ago.

That has left Guenther, the second interim manager since April who also serves as city planner, and deputy city recorder Kimmie Jackson as the only employees in City Hall. A part-time intern from a Eugene nonprofit who is supposed to be working on water issues is handling reception and other duties, and Yachats resident Tom Lauritzen has worked on contract 25 hours a week handling most financial duties.

But Guenther was forced to ask the council about hiring an accounting/administrative assistant when Lauritzen on Monday gave two weeks notice after 11 weeks on the job and no sense that the city was moving to hire his replacement.

“There’s a new sense of urgency,” Guenther said. “We need someone immediately. This can’t be something we sit on very long.”

Although city staff and council had been working on a job description for a financial officer, nothing has been formalized. Instead, Guenther found an old job description for a position to handle accounting and myriad other administrative chores. She then asked to hire Sites for the position.

Sites had worked for the city as an administrative assistant for more than a year via a contract with an employment agency. But that contract was terminated in late May by former interim city manager Lee Elliott the week before he left Yachats to return to Texas.

Resistance to immediate hire

Councilor Greg Scott made a motion to create the position and hire Sites. “It’s clear over the last four months that we have a problem in the office … and it’s time to deal with it quickly,” he said.

That drew support from Councilor Ann Stott, but opposition from Mayor Leslie Vaaler who wanted to see a formal job contract, consider hiring an accounting firm like the city of Waldport recently did, or see if several people – unnamed and not identified — who have emailed her about the city manager’s job were interested.

That continued delay didn’t sit well with others, including Guenther.

Councilors Anthony Muirhead and Mary Ellen O’Shaughnessey said they thought the job should be advertised quickly – and to see if Sites is the best candidate.

“We need to get in the process of posting all jobs,” said Muirhead, “… and need to stop making pre-determined decisions.”

“I feel like I have a gun to my head,” O’Shaughnessey said.

Guenther said she had no problem advertising the job, but said there may need to be a special council meeting within 7-10 days to approve a hire.

“… I have to really emphasize this can’t be a month-long process,” she said.

To make that point, Guenther said when she started as a 16-hour-a-week planner in March there were five employees in City Hall. “Now there’s two of us,” she said. “We’re not answering the phones anymore.”

Scott used that to admonish fellow council members, saying he was “deeply disappointed” that they were balking at hiring “someone who already knows the job and the community.”

“I’m absolutely flabbergasted that the council is wavering on this,” he said. “Have we learned nothing from our experience with Mr. Elliott?”

Despite the push from councilors to also advertise for a community services coordinator, Guenther said that position wasn’t as urgent as the finance/administrative assistant.

But, she said, “I wholeheartedly agree that this is not the way we should be doing this.”

Code enforcement, again

City Hall also needs help, once again, with code enforcement.

Yachats has been contracting with TCB Security of Newport for 16 hours a week of code enforcement duties for the past 18 months – everything from checking on overgrown lots, to junk cars, neighbor issues, and vacation rental complaints.

But a series of medical and staffing issues with TCB personnel the past two months has meant little of that is occurring. TCB informed the city that it now only has one person to work one day a week – from home.

“They have no one else they can send to help us out in this area … and that leaves us without any code enforcement,” Guenther said.

Guenther said she would also like a code enforcement officer to help with other planning-related projects, vacation rental licensing, permit compliance and other municipal chores.

The council encouraged Guenther to advertise that job as a contract position to see if anyone locally was interested.