Mayor Julie Hoy set in motion events that led to Keith Stahley’s abrupt resignation 

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An orchestrated effort to remove City Manager Keith Stahley was launched privately by some city leaders at least a full week before the Salem City Council acted to accept his resignation, according to a new statement from city officials and interviews.

Council President Linda Nishioka approached Stahley last week about resigning with the “understanding” from Mayor Julie Hoy that she was acting on behalf of the council, according to a new city statement on the matter issued Thursday, Feb. 13. 

The city had earlier said that Stahley resigned “at city council’s request” but provided no explanation for how councilors agreed to take that action when there had been no public meeting or vote on the matter.

Interviews and the city’s new statement fill in some of the blanks of what happened while raising new questions about actions by the councilors. The city issued the new and unsigned statement a day after Salem Reporter sought records of communications among the mayor and seven councilors regarding Stahley’s resignation.

His abrupt departure comes as Salem city officials plan to ask voters in May to raise property taxes to cover city services. They have said that they need to have the trust of the community for the vote to succeed.

One councilor, Micki Varney, responded to written questions from Salem Reporter on Wednesday, Feb. 12.

Varney said she talked by phone with Hoy on the evening of Sunday, Feb. 2, about the city manager. She said she didn’t commit then to supporting Stahley’s removal.

“I said I needed more information in order to make a decision either way,” Varney said in her email. “I said that we, as a council, needed to collectively discuss what needed to change and then provide that information to Mr. Stahley. I told her that Mr. Stahley needed to decide himself as to whether he could comply with our directives before we as a council could discuss any further action.” 

Councilor Shane Matthews told Salem Reporter that he too had a private conversation with Hoy and the two discussed a recently released performance audit of the city manager’s office. He said he was not asked directly if he would support Stahley’s resignation and he didn’t indicate support for that action. He said Hoy asked him how he felt generally about city leaders and the audit.

Councilors Vanessa Nordyke and Paul Tigan declined to comment. Hoy and Councilors Deanna Gwyn, Irvin Brown, and Nishioka haven’t responded to emailed questions about when they decided the matter of Stahley’s resignation and to whom they communicated that decision.

Hoy, sworn in as mayor on Jan. 13, made trust in city government a focus of her mayoral campaign.

“I’m dedicated to ensuring Salem’s government operates transparently, efficiently and always with the community’s best interests at heart,” she wrote in a Feb. 5 post on Facebook.

Hoy and the councilors recently received the finished version of an outside review of Stahley’s office. The audit criticized Stahley’s leadership, saying he often made decisions using unclear criteria without informing or consulting city employees and failed to effectively delegate or manage workloads for the people reporting to him. 

The city’s latest statement confirmed Stahley’s resignation letter that included the circumstances that prompted him to write it.

The statement said that Nishioka “was concerned that speaking with other members of council about this issue would violate the law.”

Instead, “She relied on her understanding of the situation after speaking with Mayor Julie Hoy,” the statement said without dating the conversation. City officials Thursday didn’t respond to a question about when the conversation occurred.

The city said in its latest statement that council decisions about the city manager’s job “are made by council collectively and in a public setting.”

The city charter does prohibit councilors engaging in emails on city business “when the total number of members in the email thread constitutes a quorum of council.” The charter apparently doesn’t address a chain of conversations.

The city statement, however, said that Nishioka told Stahley that the council “could conduct a public process” to ask for his resignation.

Nishioka “stated that she wanted to avoid the potential embarrassment of that process,” the city statement said.

Stahley turned in his one-page resignation letter by email two days later, on Sunday, Feb. 9. He addressed it to Hoy and councilors.

By 8 a.m. Monday, Stahley had cleaned out his office and removed his name plate from the door, the city statement said. 

City Attorney Dan Atchison notified councilors at some point that an executive session, held out of public view, would occur the following day “to consider” Stahley’s letter.

Courtney Knox Busch, the city’s strategic initiatives manager, said in an email Thursday that neither Hoy or Nishioka requested the executive session.

The city didn’t announce there would be an executive session until just hours before councilors convened behind closed doors. The city cited a provision of state law that allows such meetings “to consider the dismissal or disciplining of” an employee. The law doesn’t mention resignations.

The city’s latest statement reiterated that the purpose of the closed-door meeting was “to consider Mr. Stahley’s resignation.”

Knox Busch said Thursday the city stands behind the provision of state law it originally cited as grounds to hold the executive session.

In a subsequent public vote, the council unanimously accepted Stahley’s resignation.

On Wednesday, the city and Stahley agreed to a severance package worth about $256,000. 

According to the separation agreement, Stahley’s official resignation date is March 3, and he will be paid his severance monthly from March through December.

Krishna Namburi, a deputy city manager, is acting as city manager for now. 

“Keith was focused on service to this community with integrity and trust, and we are grateful for his leadership,” Namburi said in the city’s statement. “My immediate goals are to provide continuity and support the Council, the organization, and the community through this transition. I am grateful to be part of this organization and the continued commitment of our staff to our community. In keeping with that spirit, the city’s priority is to move forward and provide the highest quality service to our community.”

Contact reporter Joe Siess: [email protected] or 503-335-7790. 

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