Salem City Council seems to have acted illegally in forcing City Manager to resign

It isn't a good look when the Salem City Council does something that reminds me of a recent action by President Trump.

Well, it's actually worse than that, because what the City Council did appears to have been illegal (in the sense of going against the Council Rules), while Trump's action was within the scope of his powers.

What I'm talking about is forcing a senior official to resign because the alternative is being fired. This occurred when Trump made it clear that even though FBI Director Christopher Wray had three years left in his term in office, after Trump was inaugurated he was going to get rid of Wray.

So shortly before Trump took the oath of office, Wray resigned rather than be fired. Pretty much the same thing happened to City Manager Keith Stahley, as I'll describe below -- again, the difference being that the City Council seems to have acted illegally in forcing Stahley's resignation, while Trump was just acting like the authoritarian that he aspires to be.

Keith Stahley. I took this photo of him during a talk he gave recently to the Salem City Club.

Thanks to a story by Joe Siess in the Salem Reporter, our city's top-notch online publication, early in the afternoon of Monday, January 10 I learned that Stahley had submitted a resignation letter to Mayor Hoy and the city councilors. 

There were some red flags in the story that caught my eye.

City Manager Keith Stahley tendered his resignation under unclear circumstances as the city of Salem is at a crucial crossroads in addressing a substantial budget deficit.

Stahley’s office at Salem City Hall was empty Monday, his name plate gone from the door.

Courtney Knox Busch, the city’s strategic initiatives manager, confirmed to Salem Reporter that Stahley submitted a resignation letter. The Salem City Council will consider his resignation at their Monday evening meeting, she said.

Mayor Julie Hoy and city councilors either declined to answer questions Monday about the reason for Stahley’s departure or didn’t respond to requests from Salem Reporter Monday morning.

Reached Monday, Stahley declined to answer questions about his decision.

When nobody wants to talk about the resignation of the highest ranking official at the City of Salem, including the official himself, that's a pretty good sign of something fishy going on. 

The City Council is who gets to hire and fire the City Manager. Yet the City Council was going to consider his resignation on Monday evening. So I wondered, why did Stahley resign if the City Council hadn't taken any steps to fire him? After all, the only reason Wray resigned was because Trump had made it clear that if he didn't, he'd be fired.

Maybe, I thought, Stahley resigned for a personal reason, such as a family emergency (like a serious illness) that made it impossible for him to carry on with his demanding job. However, if that were the case, seemingly Stahley would have been open about sharing that reason. Instead, he didn't want to talk to the Salem Reporter journalist. 

Today, Tuesday January 11, a follow-up story by Joe Siess cleared things up. In "Salem Council president sought city manager's resignation," we learned why Stahley resigned.

Salem City Manager Keith Stahley resigned Sunday, saying in a letter he was requested to do so by Salem City Council President Linda Nishioka in an action backed by the majority of councilors.

In a resignation letter obtained by Salem Reporter, Stahley said he met with Nishioka on Friday, Feb. 7 “where she represented that she was the duly authorized representative of the Mayor and a majority of the city council and requested I tender my resignation.”

Nishioka declined to answer questions Tuesday about why she approached Stahley or what conversations she had with other councilors and Mayor Julie Hoy leading up to the resignation. 

Here's a PDF file of the resignation letter, along with a key paragraph from the letter.
Download Stahley 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. 

There appears to be a lot wrong with what Nishioka and other members of the City Council did. First, they treated Keith Stahley badly. He deserved better. Even though a performance evaluation found that Stahley's leadership style had some deficiencies, this should have been discussed openly. 

The Salem Reporter story says:

His departure comes after a performance audit released last month faulted Stahley’s leadership, saying he often made decisions using unclear criteria without informing or consulting affected city employees and failed to effectively delegate or manage workloads for the people reporting to him. 

The city finance committee, which includes Nishioka and Hoy, was due to discuss the audit in an upcoming meeting.

Second, the way Nishioka and other councilors went about forcing Stahley to resign sure seems to have gone against the Council Rules. 

One of those rules says that the City Council will be guided by Robert's Rules of Order. I'm no expert on this, but for over 20 years I was the secretary of our homeowners association out here in rural south Salem. I knew that while the board could talk among themselves about an issue prior to a board meeting, a vote on that issue had to occur at a board meeting after the membership had received a notice of the agenda, which needed to include a mention of that issue.

This fits with a discussion I found on a Robert's Rules of Order forum, where people knowledgeable about the rules said the same thing: any decision reached by members of a body such as a board of directors or City Council outside of a public meeting has to be ratified by a vote within a public meeting.

That didn't happen here. Nishioka told Stahley that a majority of the City Council wanted him to resign, but Nishioka's conversations with her fellow councilors were done behind closed doors, secretly, outside of the public eye. We have no idea who wanted Stahley gone, or if Nishioka was accurately conveying the views of a majority of the City Council.

All we know is that Stahley chose to resign rather than be fired, which was the threat Nishioka either made explicitly or implicitly to Stahley during their meeting. 

Council Rule 22 regarding council communication states:

(a) Members of Council shall not send or forward emails concerning City business to other members of Council when the total number of members in the email thread constitutes a quorum of Council. This includes the sender of the email and all recipients, including recipients that are copied or blind-copied. (Resolution 2024-5)

(b) City Staff shall blind-copy Council when sending emails to a quorum or more of Council to avoid "reply-all" responses. (Resolution 2024-5)

(c) Council members desiring to send communications to a quorum or more of Council shall submit the communication to the City Manager to be included in the agenda for the next regular Council meeting. Communications that need to occur prior to the next regular meeting shall be submitted to the City Manager and the City Manager shall forward the communication to members of Council as appropriate. Deliberations among a quorum of Council on City business may not occur through email or other means outside of a Council meeting. (Resolution 2024-5)

The intent of these rules is to avoid members of the City Council conducting business of the council outside of public meetings. Like I said, apparently Nishioka was within her rights to speak with some or all of the councilors about whether they wanted Stahley to resign.

But pretty clearly, Nishioka shouldn't have gone to Stahley and told him that she represented a majority of the City Council that wanted his resignation. Parliaments have "no confidence" votes in public, so everyone can see what the vote tally is.

I really don't like how Nishioka did her scheming in secret, and so far has refused to answer questions about "why she approached Stahley or what conversations she had with other councilors and Mayor Julie Hoy leading up to the resignation."

It's really disturbing that the City Council voted to accept Stahley's resignation at yesterday's council meeting, when according to Nishioka, a majority of those councilors had made Nishioka their representative to force Stahley to resign, or be fired.

This is not how government is supposed to work. It's the sort of thing that wouldn't surprise me if the Trump administration did it. I've been hoping that the Salem City Council would be a refuge from this sort of divisive, manipulative politics.

That hope has been dashed. 

UPDATE: I just noticed an email from the City of Salem that says Stahely resigned at the request of the City Council. That isn't true. The City Council never voted on this. Some city councilors asked him to resign, a big difference, as that wasn't an official act. Here's part of the email.

SALEM CITY MANAGER RESIGNS

News Release from City of Salem
Posted on FlashAlert: February 11th, 2025 1:29 PM

 

SALEM, Ore. -- Feb. 11, 2025 -- The Salem City Council accepted City Manager Keith Stahley's resignation on Monday, February 10, 2025.  Stahley began his tenure as Salem's City Manager on September 12, 2022, following a five-month recruitment.  At City Council's request, Mr. Stahley submitted his letter of resignation on February 9, 2025.  Per the terms of his contract, Mr. Stahley will receive a total of eight months' severance and is entitled to a pay out of accrued leave for a sum of $255,845.97.
 

Comments

[L. Marie]

The ways and means may no longer be paramount, but there were valid reasons for the City Manager to move on with or without 'encouragement' from Council. His abysmal performance report merely highlighted some of the functional problems that resulted from his leadership. I hope the city can choose better for his replacement.