Residents sound off on city departures
Two individuals blame mayor for city staff resignations
By William Lundquist
Argus Observer
Tuesday, November 6, 2007 10:46 AM PST
Ontario — Accusations from citizens that the Ontario City Council ran off City Manager Scott Trainor, and an aborted executive session over how to replace him, enlivened what would have otherwise been a short City Council meeting devoted to housekeeping measures Monday night.
“What is happening to the city staff is wrong,” former Ontario Human Resources Manager Shawn Smith said during the public comments part of the meeting. About 20 city employees and residents attended the meeting to hear what she had to say.
“He (Trainor) left because he could see the handwriting on the wall,” Smith said as she praised Trainor.
She accused Ontario Mayor Joe Dominick of running Trainor off, and said the new mayor had failed at his campaign promise to bring positive change to Ontario.
“What positive change has he brought?” she asked.
Her accusations were backed up by a letter from resident and former city employee Shannon Aguiar read to the City Council by Ontario City Recorder Tori Barnett.
“I agree with statements in the newspaper about city employees being run off by the new council and mayor,” Aguiar wrote. “It’s an understatement to say that Mr. Trainor is an excellent city manager and the best Ontario has had for a very long time.”
Aguiar said Trainor had restored city employee morale after it had been destroyed by the previous city manager.
She said Dominick, prior to the election, had attacked city employees’ wages.
She said rather than complaining about the wages, elected officials need to explore ways to increase business and provide better job opportunities for the underpaid and unemployed in Ontario.
Council members did not respond directly to the comments, but later in the meeting Dominick gave the other council members copies of a message he had Trainor pass on to the city employees.
Dominick’s message spoke of the resignations of the city manager and public works director and assured city employees that the council is doing everything it could to make sure the transition goes smoothly within all departments.
“Obviously,” Dominick said, “the department heads know what to do to keep things running smoothly, and the council and mayor can be there to listen and help. We really appreciate all that you do to provide quality services to the citizens of Ontario and we want to help continue this as we all go through this transition.”
Dominick asked employees to go directly to him and a council member if they hear any rumors that concern them.
The council members and Trainor, in executive session, started to discuss names they had already received as possible interim or permanent city manager applicants, but City Attorney Larry Sullivan told them they were violating Oregon’s public meetings laws to do so without first having advertised for the positions and established procedures and criteria for selecting a city manager. Council members then moved the discussion back to the open meeting and talked about whether to handle the search themselves or pay for the League of Oregon Cities or a private search firm to help find the candidates for them. The majority of the council members preferred to seek outside help for the task. The council also discussed whether to hire an interim manager or go straight to the permanent replacement.
The City Council will hold a special meeting at 8 a.m. Thursday to continue to work with Trainor on finding his successor.
Coming out of another executive session, council members voted unanimously to file the litigation they had just discussed in the session, but they did not disclose what that litigation was.
Also during the meeting, and as promised, Ontario Police Chief Mike Kee asked the council to start thinking about funding, not only for a full-time traffic enforcement officer, but for gang enforcement.
“We continue to have a gang problem,” Kee said, citing last month’s gang shooting. “You just have to drive around town and look at the graffiti.”
He offered to bring the council a similar funding proposal from a city in western Oregon.
City Councilman Bruce Tuttle said, “I really think there is a need,” and encouraged Kee to prepare his proposal.
