News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Mayor Lon Kellstrom believes he acted appropriately when he asked EDCO (Economic Development for Central Oregon) to lead the search for an economic development manager for Sisters.
The process, which led to the hiring of Mac Hay earlier this month, has become controversial in the run-up to the November 2 city council election.
"The budget committee put the money in (the budget) and the council approved the budget," Kellstrom said. "We were originally going to try to work through the (Sisters Area Chamber of Commerce) board."
But Kellstrom doubted that the chamber had the capabilities to do the kind of professional search the position required. Then Roger Lee, executive director of EDCO, stepped up.
"Roger said, 'Look, we can do that for you,'" Kellstrom said.
On his own initiative, Kellstrom gave EDCO, a private nonprofit organization, the green light to put together a job description, candidate search and interview process. EDCO has declined to release details of the candidate search, including the identities of candidates and who sat on the interviewing panel. As a private nonprofit, they are not obligated to do so.
The withholding of such information has led to concerns in some quarters over lack of transparency in the decision-making process.
Kellstrom continues to believe that there was no problem with his initiation of the hiring process.
"I thought it was incumbent on me and Eileen (Stein, city manager) to bring the council something to consider," Kellstrom said. "I just thought these guys (EDCO) are pros, they could do it better than anyone else could."
He did not think there was much point in casting about for others to conduct the search, "given the fact that there were no other appropriate agencies that could do this for us - especially for free..."
He acknowledges that the city council was not consulted before Kellstrom gave the project to EDCO.
"That's true," he said. "The council didn't say 'head down the road with EDCO.' The council didn't need to do that, per Steve Bryant (city attorney)."
Local activist Mike Morgan disagrees. In a lengthy letter to Kellstrom, Morgan argued that the mayor's actions violated Sisters' ordinance governing procedures for contracting (Ordinance 394).
"The real issue is the delegation of authority to EDCO, and that can't happen without a vote of the council," Morgan wrote. "Had that vote occurred ... then EDCO would be operating under an approved contract as an extension of the city and the process would have been subject to public meeting and records law. But an agreement was never lawfully executed between the city and EDCO because Mayor Kellstrom had already directed EDCO to do work that by statute is reserved for the local contract review board and by ordinance is to be done by the city council."
The Nugget interviewed Kellstrom before Morgan's letter was sent, but the Mayor was asked to respond to Morgan's general argument.
"I'll leave the legal issues to Steve Bryant," he said. "But my response is that we did not expend public funds to do this. If we had had to spend $2,000 to do this, that (a council vote) is exactly what would have happened."
Morgan rejects this explanation.
"Public meeting law and the (city) charter require decisions to be made by the council," he said. "It's irrelevant that no money changed hands."
Bryant was on vacation last week and responded via e-mail to an inquiry from The Nugget regarding Morgan's assertions.
"Mr. Morgan has his facts wrong about the process," Bryant wrote "The mayor did not refer the hiring process to EDCO. My understanding is that the city was considering how to proceed with the economic director position and had talked with various agencies about the best approach. In talking with EDCO, they indicated that they could do this work for the city.
"The mayor told them to go ahead and put together a contract for the city to review. That action does not violate any ordinance or state law, and is what other individual council members could do if approached with a request or suggestion about doing work for the city; put together a proposal and give it to the city for consideration. EDCO understood throughout the process that whatever they proposed was subject of approval by the city council."
Kellstrom said his goals were to keep the council out of the search process to avoid bias and to get the best candidate available to do the economic development work.
"We wanted the best person we could possibly get for the relatively small amount of money ($30,000) we were able to spend," he said.
Kellstrom noted that the council approved EDCO's recommendation of Mac Hay for the position by a 4-1 vote. Sharlene Weed, a harsh critic of the process, was the dissenting vote.
Kellstrom does not like the way his actions have been portrayed in the community
"I don't feel it's been fairly characterized, because there's a fairly small, vocal minority that's opposed to everything," he said. "I kind of think it's a tempest in a teapot, personally."
That tempest is likely to be further roiled. Weed has called for questions to be addressed at Thursday night's city council meeting.
In an e-mail to City Manager Eileen Stein last week, Weed wrote: "As you might imagine, I have been getting questions regarding the process for hiring the (economic development) manager. Specifically, did we follow our ordinance relating to public contracting? For next week's meeting (Thursday, October 28) please be prepared and ask Steve (Bryant) to be prepared to address this topic."
Morgan insists that the hiring of Mac Hay is rendered invalid by what he asserts is a violation of city ordinance.
"The process used to award Mac Hay the economic development contract violated public meeting law and the city charter that both require decisions be made by majority vote of the council in a public meeting. That never happened," Morgan wrote. "The only lawful remedy is a do-over per ORS 192.680(1); i.e., the process needs to be repeated in compliance with Oregon public meeting law, public contracting law, the city charter and applicable ordinances."
(The full text of Morgan's letter to the city may be viewed with the online version of this story at www.nuggetnews.com.
?Kellstrom said that he is confident that Hay and Stein will develop strong performance measurements and that Hay and other participants will pursue all possible avenues of promoting and enhancing the economic health of the community. He also believes the council majority's outlook is not as far from that of their political opponents as has been suggested.
"We're looking at anything and everything we can do," he said. "It's not just traded sector. I don't think we're that far apart in terms of what we want the outcome to be."
But the mayor expressed doubts that his political opponents, if elected, would continue to invest seriously in economic development.
"I think it's money well spent - and invested - if you will, because if we don't do anything we don't have a chance. I don't think they would fund anything," he said. "And I think that would be a very serious problem long term."
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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