Chenoweth’s fellow Mac city councilors express support for hiring process, city manager

McMinnville City Councilor Chris Chenoweth has publicly questioned city leadership over the hiring process of the future police chief and other executive positions, but a majority of council disagrees.

The councilors told the News-Register that City Manager Jeff Towery is following a process that has been in place for years.

The city is hoping to name a replacement for retiring Chief Matt Scales by Nov. 1, and Towery has led the search along with an interview panel of employees. The city held a meet-and-greet with finalists earlier this month that all councilors were invited to attend.

Chenoweth criticized the hiring process for the police chief, city attorney and public works director during public comment at Tuesday’s meeting, saying city council should have more of a role in the interviewing process rather than a yes or no vote on a candidate recommended by Towery.

He alleged the city is violating its charter with the current process and asked for an outside attorney to be brought in to determine if Towery overstepped his role as city manager.

Chenoweth stepped down from the dais to address fellow councilors as a citizen during public comment, an unusual move and — per city policy — no one responded at the time to Chenoweth’s assertions.

The News Register asked all seven councilors their thoughts on the assertions and four said they believed the city is following the correct process, Chenoweth disagreed and Councilors Jessica Payne and Sal Peralta did not respond to the request.

Drabkin pointed to the charter, which says council “may designate an appointive officer to supervise” the hiring process.

“Council has a practice of appointing based on recommendations from the designated supervisor of the city employees (a.k.a. the city manager),” Drabkin said. “Current city legal counsel and previous legal counsel have all interpreted this practice to be in line with the charter.

“The city attorney recognized there is flexibility in how the council interprets the language and the current process is completely within the charter.”

Council President Adam Garvin had a similar view, stating current and previous city attorneys interpreted the charter in the same way. He questioned why Chenoweth has pointed to rules in other cities’ charters when making the argument McMinnville is violating theirs.

“Councilor Chenoweth stretches to try and cite the City of Beaverton’s charter to make his case for violation of the City of McMinnville charter (which) has no merit,” Garvin said. “Each City charter is independent of one another, how or why Beaverton’s charter is in his argument is unclear for me.

“I wouldn’t go to Target and try to cite Costco’s return policy on a similar item, nor would I buy a GMC Truck and expect a OEM Ram Truck powertrain warranty.”

In a letter submitted to the city, Chenoweth cited the Beaverton charter’s definition of the term “appoint” in regard to hiring.

Councilors Zack Geary and Kellie Menke agreed the process is legal, with Menke saying she has seen many processes for hiring chiefs over the years.

Chenoweth said that while he believes the city is violating the charter, the council should bear some responsibility for not calling out the process when it was first used to hire the city attorney.

“The first time this process was used, we should have addressed it and put it back in our hands,” he said.

Asked whether Towery has overstepped his role as city manager, councilors supported the city’s top executive and noted city staff have frequently updated the dais since Scales announced his retirement plans in February.

“On July 9, council was invited to a scheduled police chief candidate meet-and-greet to be held in early October. At that opportunity were councilors, police department staff, members of the city’s (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Committee), and other city executives,” Geary said. “All that wanted to were able to provide feedback after that on the prospective chief candidates. All that will lead to a recommendation to council to make the appointment of a new chief, assuming a final rigorous background and evaluation check is passed.”

Garvin agreed Human Resources Director Vickie Hedges has been in frequent contact with council and Chenoweth had plenty of time to cite concerns ahead of the final decision.

“Matt’s retirement was noticed over eight months ago, the timeline for filling this vacancy was made aware to all of council over five months ago. Councilor Chenoweth suddenly has an issue with “the process,” less than 30 days ago,” Garvin said.

An email exchange between Chenoweth and City Attorney David Ligtenberg about the charter rules occurred between Sept. 24 and 27, with Ligtenberg explaining the position he has held publicly since.

Drabkin pointed again to the charter where it states the city manager is responsible for oversight of all employees outside of the Municipal Judge and Mac Water & Light employees.

“I do feel Councilor Chenoweth has overstepped his role in this process,” she said.

Chenoweth denied asking for an investigation into Towery and said an outside attorney could provide perspective they may not receive from city employees.

“Since there is disagreement as to the meaning of the charter, I want an outside attorney to establish the meaning and thus establish whether Jeff has exceeded his authority under the charter,” Chenoweth said. “The Council needs to actually hire the attorney separate from the executive branch so that the current attorney’s bias potential is not a factor and, more importantly, so he is protected from any potential consequences of a determination.”

Council receives “sound legal advice” from Ligtenberg and bringing in outside counsel would be a waste, according to Geary.

“The call for hiring outside review would be a wasted expense by a rogue councilor trying to prove an outcome they want,” he said.

Also on Tuesday, Chenoweth accused Drabkin and Towery of centralizing control “to the point where open discussions on these types of issues are being stifled.”

Drabkin disagreed with that assessment.

“It’s up to council to bring me agenda items for consideration,” she said. “I’ve never received a request to have this as an agenda item. Chenoweth’s first email to me about this was on Oct. 11 expressing his discontent with the process but without a request to be discussed on the dais.”

Garvin said prior city attorney vacancies slowed processes down but councilors have always had the opportunity to discuss topics that have passed legal review. Geary was more direct.

“Any effective councilor knows how to bring up and address topics,” Geary said.

Chenoweth cited the safe school zones debate from earlier this year, past disagreements with Mac Water & Light and the police chief search as examples when topics were not able to be discussed at the dais.

Towery declined to comment for this article.