by James Jordan and Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington City Council has voted to fire City Manager Roy Eckert. His tenure with the City of Wellington will end tonight at midnight. After one 30 minute and two 15 minute executive sessions this afternoon, the council reconvened in open session and councilman Kip Etter made the motion to terminate Eckert’s contract. Kelly Green Hawley made the second and the vote was then taken. Green, Kip Etter and Bill Butts voted for the immediate termination. Jan Korte, Jim Valentine and Vince Wetta voted against the motion.

Roy Eckert

With the vote 3-3, Mayor Shelley Hansel was then called upon to cast the deciding vote – favoring the motion to terminate Eckert.

The Wellington Council held the special meeting in the council chambers at 12:30 p.m. After calling for at least two executive sessions, the vote was taken at 1:40 p.m.

The council did not take any action on naming an interim city manager. So effectively at midnight, Wellington will be without a city manager. Wellington City Clerk Carol Mericle said she does not know who will be the interim only that a special meeting will probably be called to determine Eckert’s replacement – albeit it be temporarily or permanently. 

Eckert was hired to be the new city manager on November, 2014 – replacing Gus Collins, who resigned in April and interim city manager Shane Shields. He was in office for 17 months. Eckert’s immediate termination is highly unusual in that the city manager receives a contract starting on the date of his employment. Normally, the council will then have an executive session for performance review, before determining whether or not to renew or terminate the contract. Then the city manager will serve out the remainder of the contract year. The council then usually names a replacement.

Because Eckert was in the middle of his yearly contract, the city council must now pay him $100,000 in severance pay until the end of his contract year. And currently, there is not a city manager in place. Mericle said there is assistant city manager Jason Newberry and finance director Shields. At the time, Mericle said it is unclear who will take over the city manager office duties until someone is named by the council. Mayor Hansel later told Sumner Newscow that Newberry would be in charge of the day-to-day operations.

This marks the first time in the history that a city council has fired a city manager immediately since switching to a city manager form of government 50 years ago. He is also the shortest tenured city manager in Wellington history.

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Hansel said her tie-breaking vote was not an easy vote to cast, but she felt it was the thing to do.

Earlier this month an executive session was held to talk about Eckert’s performance review during a work session. Each of the council members had filled out an evaluation before that meeting. Hansel said those reviews were not good.

She initially questioned the need to move so fast, but agreed to have the meeting Friday.

Eckert has seven months left on his contract and will receive about $100,000 as per his contract. Hansel said he probably would not be comfortable working, knowing his contract was not going to be renewed, so she voted for immediate termination.

She said the council felt that Eckert was not the person to take the city to the next level.

She stressed that Eckert had did nothing wrong and she feels he is a good person. But she and the rest of the council wants a manager that will be more aggressive in leading the city.

The biggest complaints against Eckert was a lack of leadership, communication with the council and general morale around city hall, Hansel said. 

“We all thought he was a great guy with a lot of experience,” Hansel said. “I just think the person we are looking for needs to be more aggressive in leadership. We need a go-getter, someone who will take risks and get things to a higher level.”

Hansel said Wellington has some good things going for it, and needs a strong leader who can get things done.

Hansel told Sumner Newscow the council did not discuss an interim person, but Jason Newberry will assume the day to day functions of a city manager for the immediate future. They may name an interim for the positon as they begin the process of looking for a city manager again.

The council took a lot of time in its last search, and some of the council members did not want to go through that process again.

But Hansel said the direction the city has gone the last couple of years is not the direction they feel it should go. She said the council will need to take some time and decide on its future direction before hiring another manager.

And facing financial problems already, the city will be spending the money to pay out his contract while paying to find another city manager.

“My stomach was churning. It has not been my favorite day,” Hansel said after the meeting. 

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