Today the Salem Reporter has a story about the shifting explanations city officials have been coming up with about the disturbing way Keith Stahley, the recently-resigned City Manager, was removed from his important position.
I already knew most of what was said in the story, "A timeline of statements surrounding Salem city manager's resignation."
After all, I've begun the process of filing a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission regarding how Stahley was forced to resign outside of a public process, as detailed in a February 15 blog post, "I just initiated an ethics complaint against the City of Salem."
My complaint focuses on a violation of Oregon's public meetings law, which prohibits serial communications by a public body. Meaning, in this instance, Mayor Julie Hoy can't talk individually in private with a majority of city councilors about whether Stahley should resign, because the decision to hire or fire the city manager has to occur in a public City Council meeting.
A February 13 statement from the City of Salem that I got via FlashAlert says just that:
The City Manager is the sole employee of the City Council. Decisions regarding the City Manager's employment are made by Council collectively and in a public setting.
Well, that's what supposed to happen. But what actually happened in this case wasn't that at all. There's plenty of evidence that Mayor Hoy (no relation to the previous mayor, Chris Hoy) set in motion a private illegal process that resulted in Stahley's forced resignation.
That February 13 City of Salem statement describes what happened on February 7.
February 7, 2025. As Mr. Stahley noted in his resignation letter, Council President Linda Nishioka met with Mr. Stahley and discussed his potential resignation. Councilor Nishioka met with Mr. Stahley because she believed that Council could conduct a public process leading to Council asking Mr. Stahley for his resignation. She has stated that she wanted him to avoid the potential embarrassment of that process. Due to public meeting law limitations, Councilor Nishioka was concerned that speaking with other members of Council about this issue would violate the law. She relied on her understanding of the situation after speaking with Mayor Julie Hoy. This conversation triggered an Executive Session to consider the dismissal or discipline of an employee (ORS 192.660(2)(b)).
So Nishioka met privately with Stahley to discuss his resignation, believing that otherwise the City Council could conduct a public process leading to the Council asking him to resign. Well, that's what should have happened -- a public process. Unfortunately, the Executive Session where the Council considered Stahley's dismissal occurred after he resigned, not before.
But Mayor Hoy didn't want a public process. To her credit, Nishioka didn't want to speak with other members of the City Council because she knew this was against public meetings law. Hoy, however, didn't have that worry.
Amazingly, and disturbingly, in a February 15 City of Salem statement that I also got via FlashAlert, City Attorney Atchison says that he told Hoy it was perfectly fine for her to have "individual communications with different members of City Council concerning Keith Stahley's performance and potential separation from the City."
Wow. It sure seems like the City Attorney advised Mayor Hoy to break the law that Councilor Nishioka realized prevented her from doing what Hoy did. This is why I'm filing a complaint with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission: to learn whether the commission agrees with the City Attorney, or whether Mayor Hoy did indeed violate public meetings law.
A key question: how do we know that Hoy privately spoke with a majority of the City Council about Stahley resigning? This is important, since serial communications are forbidden when they occur among a quorum of the members of a governing body, as contrasted with the Salem mayor talking with a minority of the City Council about an issue.
One reason we know this is what Councilor Nishioka said in a February 16 statement that's included in the Salem Reporter story.
Mayor Julie Hoy told me that a majority of councilors believed Mr. Stahley should consider resigning.
Since we can assume that Mayor Hoy doesn't have a mystical ability to read the minds of City Council members, obviously the only way Hoy could know that a majority believed he should consider resigning is if Hoy talked with a majority of councilors outside of a public meeting.
What Keith Stahley said in his resignation letter also shows that Hoy spoke with a majority of the City Council about his resignation.
I am submitting this resignation based on a meeting that I had with Councilor Nishioka on Friday February 7, 2025, where she represented that she was the duly authorized representative of the Mayor and a majority of City Council and requested that I tender my resignation.
Note that Stahley says that Nishioka represented herself as being both a duly authorized representative of the Mayor and a majority of the City Council. Since Nishioka is president of the entire City Council, her saying that she was a representative of a majority of the council clearly indicates that she’s speaking here about whether Stahley has the support of that majority to remain in that position.
Stahley also said that Nishioka requested that he tender his resignation. This fits with what the City of Salem said in the February 13 FlashAlert communication about what happened on February 7.
As Mr. Stahley noted in his resignation letter, Council President Linda Nishioka met with Mr. Stahley and discussed his potential resignation.... She relied on her understanding of the situation after speaking with Mayor Julie Hoy.
And what was that understanding? Nishioka described what it was in her February 16 statement. To repeat, it was:
Mayor Julie Hoy told me that a majority of councilors believed Mr. Stahley should consider resigning.
So Hoy told Nishioka that a majority of the Council wanted Stahley to consider resigning. The City of Salem says that Nishioka met with Stahley and discussed his potential resignation. Stahley goes further and says that Nishioka requested that he tender his resignation.
But somehow Nishioka said in her February 16 statement:
At no point did I:
• Tell Mr. Stahley I represented the City Council or acting on City Council’s behalf.
• Tell Mr. Stahley I was acting as an authorized representative for the Council.
• Ask for his resignation.
• Nor did anyone ask me to ask him to resign.
This contradicts what Stahley said in his resignation letter. Basically, Nishioka is accusing Stahley of lying. It also contradicts what the City of Salem said in its official February 13 statement regarding the City Manager's resignation:
As Mr. Stahley noted in his resignation letter, Council President Linda Nishioka met with Mr. Stahley and discussed his potential resignation.
I could be wrong, but I don't believe Nishioka. She wants us to believe that after speaking with Mayor Hoy, who told Nishioka that a majority of the City Council wanted Stahley to resign, Nishioka met with Stahley and didn't ask for his resignation, even though the City of Salem says that Nishioka discussed his potential resignation.
It sound to me like Nishioka is trying to act like Bill Clinton, who in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, famously said, according to Wikipedia:
A much-quoted statement from Clinton's grand jury testimony showed him questioning the precise use of the word "is". Contending his statement that "there's nothing going on between us" had been truthful because he had no ongoing relationship with Lewinsky at the time he was questioned, Clinton said, "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If the—if he—if 'is' means is and never has been, that is not—that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement."
I can't understand what Clinton is trying to say, just as I deeply doubt what Nishioka is trying to say. Namely, that even though she is the President of the City Council and had been told by Mayor Hoy that a majority of the Council wanted Stahley to consider resigning, she never told Stahley that she was acting on behalf of the City Council when she discussed his potential resignation on February 7.
Me, I believe Stahley. To repeat what he said in his resignation letter:
I am submitting this resignation based on a meeting that I had with Councilor Nishioka on Friday February 7, 2025, where she represented that she was the duly authorized representative of the Mayor and a majority of City Council and requested that I tender my resignation.
Of course, I could be wrong. But so could Nishioka. I just don't understand why Stahley would lie about what happened in his meeting with Nishioka.
Given that Stahley is apparently making no protest about resigning, I have to wonder if he even wants his job back. I'd think you talking directly to Stahely would be your first order of business. Apparently, you haven't done that. Which strikes me as really strange.
Posted by: sant64 | February 18, 2025 at 01:27 PM