Port Angeles City Council may make departing manager a paid consultant
By Jim Casey, Peninsula Daily News
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The contract, according to Councilman Dan Di Guilio, would pay Madsen as needed for advice on pending projects after he leaves.
Madsen said he still expects to leave at the end of August.
Port Angeles City Council members will gather Tuesday afternoon for a special meeting on the contract and other issues that derive from Madsen's resignation (see related report).
The session will be held in City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
Madsen told Peninsula Daily News on Thursday — his first day back after a week's vacation — that he knew nothing about the consultant contract.
"I have had no conversations with the City Council about this proposed contract," he said.
"It did not come from me."
Asked if such a contract might accelerate his departure, he said, "I really cannot speculate about that."
Not a full-time job
"That's not the issue at all," said Di Guilio, one of three council members on committee to search for a new city manager.
Mayor Gary Braun and Councilwoman Karen Rogers serve with Di Guilio on the ad hoc committee.
Rogers could not be contacted, and Braun declined to comment.
"Because it hasn't come before council yet," Braun said, "it's not fair for me to make any comments on [the consultant contract].
"I'm not going to pre-judge what the council is going to do."
Di Guilio said: "There are a couple of major issues that Mark has been a major player in."
He cited negotiations with the National Park Service over the city's new water intake plant on the Elwha River and the city's role in marketing the former Rayonier pulp mill property.
The consultant agreement "wouldn't be a full-time contract," he added, but work "on an as-needed basis."
Madsen also is due to collect a $37,000 payment for severance from the job he has filled since October 2005.
According to the terms of his most recent contract, the payment represents three months' of his $148,000 salary, two of those months without city contributions to his retirement account.
Deal sweetened in 2007
The same package was outlined in Madsen's original, Oct. 4, 2005, contract — but only if he were terminated or asked to resign.
If he resigned voluntarily, he was to receive only his accumulated leave time.
But Madsen's contract was altered in April 2007, giving him a $20,000 raise and a provision to pay him six months' salary if he were fired, three months' salary if he voluntarily resigned.
Madsen quit due to what he called an "untenable, hostile work environment" and a rift within the council.
His action followed his July 1 memo to council members in which he threatened to quit because of "inappropriate council member intrusions into the administrative matters of the city."
Neither Madsen nor the council has revealed what those intrusions were, despite a parade of citizens at a council meeting July 15 who demanded an accounting.
Payoff unusually low?
Madsen called the voluntary resignation package a normal part of contracts for city managers.
"It's actually unusual it's as low as it is," he said, "usually because when we leave, it's because of situations like this."
Asked if he'd elaborate on "situations like this," Madsen said, "Nope."
As for the voluntary resignation package, Port Townsend City Manager David Timmons said he'd never heard of such a benefit.
Clallam County Administrator Jim Jones and former Jefferson County Administrator John Fischbach also called Madsen's benefit unique.
(See Martha Ireland's column, Page A10.)
Told of the other public executive's remarks, Madsen said, "I'm not going to comment on that. I don't know what those people said or why."
Only pros need apply
He did, however, speak to other agenda items on Tuesday's special agenda.
Regarding an interim manager, Madsen said, "There are two or three people out there who are very much considered to be in anybody's mind across this state."
They include Stan McNutt, who has served as interim manager in Spokane Valley and Blaine County, Idaho, and Doug Robinson, who has served in Kelso.
"My recommendation to [council members] would be that they only consider someone who had served as a city manager or a county executive, an outside professional."
Di Guilio agreed.
"There are a group of former city managers who could come," he said.
In regard to candidates closer to home, Madsen said, "I don't even know if they [council members] are looking at anyone local."
No familiar names
Di Guilio said council members, indeed, had not.
"No names have been mentioned regarding who would be the interim city manager," he said.
Regarding the agenda item, "options for a permanent city manager," Madsen said, "I think it's options for recruitment.
"They asked me for recommendations on the process. This [the Tuesday meeting] is the first time they've had an opportunity in a full council meeting to discuss that information.
"I don't think this is a discussion about an individual.
"I think this is a discussion about process."
Braun said, concerning the options for interim and permanent managers, "that's something yet to be discussed and something that has yet to be determined."
Madsen said, "Everything you see [on the agenda] is driven by council. It's council functions."
And Di Guilio said, "There's no other hidden agendas. There's no other agenda there at all, I can assure you that."
On the agenda
The full agenda for Tuesday's special City Council meeting, according to City Clerk Becky Upton, includes:
The session will begin at 4:30 p.m. in City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
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Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.
Last modified: July 24. 2008 9:00PM