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PREVIOUSLY: Blue Lake City Council Set to Hire Former County Supervisor Jill Duffy as New Interim City Manager

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At a brief special meeting Tuesday evening, the Blue Lake City Council unanimously agreed to hire former two-term Humboldt County Supervisor Jill Duffy as the city’s new acting city manager.

Duffy, who has also served as executive director of the Humboldt Waste Management Authority and general manager of the Humboldt County Fair Association, agreed to step into her new role the following morning, meaning she’s already on the job today.

The council — minus member Michelle Lewis-Lusso, who was absent — sang Duffy’s praises ahead of the vote. Councimember Kat Napier said she had spoken with Duffy extensively and was thoroughly impressed with her qualifications and experience.

“She has a vast knowledge on how government works, and also, I found, above all else, integrity. And that is something that I think we will all value here … ,” Napier said. “However you feel about the council, I think that Jill Duffy stepping forward is something that serves all of Blue Lake.”

Fellow councilmember Elise Scafani and Mayor John Sawatzky made similar comments, with the latter saying Duffy “has filled many, many roles and dealt with many, many different situations throughout our local Humboldt County community.”

Duffy herself came to the lectern and said that, as someone who was enjoying her retirement, she had some trepidation about taking the position. But she feels the city has made “some remarkable progress” since she lived in town (Duffy now lives in Fortuna).

However, in a nod to the city’s tumultuous political atmosphere of late, Duffy said Blue Lake “needs a little, you know, stabilizing” as it works with SoCal marketing agency Tripepi Smith to recruit good candidates for the permanent city manager position.

“It’s really important that some of the turmoil kind of calm so that it becomes attractive to people to want to apply,” Duffy said.

Duffy rejoins the workforce as a CalPERS retired annuitant, which means her employment with the city comes with certain restrictions, including working no more than 40 hours per week, on average. She told the council that she intends to stick with that, even with the requirements of frequent public meetings.

Dani Burkhart, who had served as acting city manager since the city parted ways with longtime City Manager Amanda “Mandy” Mager in May, will return to her position as finance manager, according to the staff report.

Brown Act Issues

While Duffy’s hiring wasn’t official until the council cast its votes last night, the public proceedings appeared largely ceremonial, a formality necessary only to finalize a decision that had already been made, according to David Loy, legal director for the nonprofit First Amendment Coalition.

As noted in our story from yesterday, the Blue Lake City Council met in closed session last week to discuss a “public employee appointment,” among other matters. California’s open meetings law, the Ralph M. Brown Act, requires local government bodies to report any actions taken in closed session. But the Blue Lake City Council did not report anything after its July 22 meeting. When asked about the meeting afterward, Mayor Sawatzky reiterated that no reportable actions had been taken.

And yet the staff report prepared for yesterday’s meeting “all but admits — or implies — that they made the decision [to hire Duffy] already,” Loy said in a phone interview ahead of last night’s meeting. 

Specifically, Loy pointed out that not only was Duffy’s employment agreement fully drafted and ready for signatures, but the staff report says the council “has decided to appoint an experienced public administrator” and that Duffy “has agreed to serve” as interim city manager [emphasis added]. The logical conclusion, he said, is that those decisions were made during the July 22 closed session hearing but not reported to the public, as required by law.

Speaking to the Outpost on Tuesday afternoon, Loy said, “It’s very telling to me that, as of today’s agenda report, [the council] admitted they’ve already made the decision to appoint [Duffy], which means they had to have had a collective conversation and vote, or consensus, before today.”

The Brown Act defines a government action broadly, he explained. (You can find that definition in the state’s legal code.) “It’s not merely a formal finalization of the employment contract. And bear in mind, the Brown Act has to be construed broadly in favor of transparency.”

This marks the third time since April that Blue Lake’s government has been accused of violating California’s open meetings law. Legal experts said the city appeared to violate the Brown Act when parting ways with Mager in May and again later that month in approving her separation agreement, as reported by former North Coast Journal News Editor Thadeus Greenson.

When contacted by Greenson, City Attorney Ryan Plotz of Eureka’s Mitchell Law Firm stood by his position that no reportable action had been taken in the former instance, and he declined to comment on the latter because it was a personnel matter. 

Local resident and former Blue Lake councilmember Alex Ricca, who is involved in an effort to recall Sawatzky, Scafani and Napier, subsequently sent a “cure and correct” demand letter, directing the city to address these apparent violations of law. Plotz determined that the allegations “lack legal merit,” as reported by Times-Standard reporter Sage Alexander.

[Side note: Ricca has been accused publicly of threatening to kill Sawatzky. In a nine-minute audio recording sent anonymously to the Outpost, Ricca can be heard admitting saying such a thing, though he describes the outburst as “rhetorical hyperbole” uttered in the heat of the moment. Ricca adds that he is chagrined by his behavior and repeatedly apologizes to Sawatzky.

In a July 8 email, Sawatzky said, “I can confirm I have reported two separate incidents of what I perceived as threats and intimidation to the sheriffs department by Mr. Ricca.” Sawatzky added that he requested paperwork for a restraining order but the forms are “cumbersome” and he had not yet completed them.

Here’s the recording: Ricca and Sawatzky

The Outpost emailed Ricca seeking comment on the recording but has yet to hear back from him. End of side note.]

Asked to respond to this latest alleged violation of the Brown Act, Plotz told the Outpost via email on Tuesday that while the city council had interviewed Duffy and there was mutual interest, “nothing is approved or final until the Council approves in open session.”

Loy responded, “I guess I hear that, and I respectfully disagree.”

He said other government agencies in the state have taken that same position, and while he’s not aware of any case law that applies directly to such instances, he said, “I don’t buy the argument.”

He reiterated that the term “action taken” means “a collective decision made by a majority of the members of a legislative body,” not merely the formal finalizing of that decision by having “every piece of paper wordsmithed and signed.”

Here’s video of last night’s meeting: