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Candid views on how Port Angeles City Hall got into the ‘train wreck’

Published 4:16 am Sunday, August 17, 2008

By Paul Gottlieb, Peninsula Daily News

PORT ANGELES — The first day of 2008 was a bad day for City Manager Mark Madsen.

It was the first day of what he later would say became “a train wreck.”

The situation ultimately led to Madsen’s resignation on July 9 after he cited “untenable, hostile work conditions” created by certain City Council members toward him and the city staff.

Later, in a July 27 Peninsula Daily News story, a majority of City Council members disputed Madsen’s sharply worded July 1 memos about “actions and attitudes of concern” that led to his departure, suggesting his claims may be exaggerated.

But the questions continued:

  • Why did Madsen write in an e-mail:

    “The role and function of ‘mayor’ at a very practical level has been unfulfilled.”

  • Why was there “never a unified voice from the council to keep the city manager,” as put by council member Karen Rogers, elected by the council as the city’s mayor for 2005-2007.

    And why did the mayor say to this: “I don’t have an answer”?

  • Why was there no meeting by the full City Council to discuss Madsen’s complaints, outlined in those two July 1 memos?

  • Who were the City Council members at odds with Madsen?

  • Who didn’t speak to Madsen from Feb. 8 until July 3?

  • Who was the council member who “has been questioning, and in fact undermining, the authority and legitimate duties and actions of the city manager from her first day in office,” according to Madsen?

  • What happened at a pivotal Feb. 8 meeting?

    This story has many of the answers.

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