I certainly don’t feel good about the firing of Haines Borough manager Bill Seward, but I believe it was the best decision for the valley’s voters and taxpayers.
I appreciate that there are legitimate concerns about the history of turnover in the manager’s position, including the difficulty of finding manager applicants who are highly qualified and the reputation of the town as being tough on managers.
I am confident that, working together, we can find an experienced and capable manager for our municipality. If I had no faith that could happen, I would have voted differently on Dec. 15.
I did not “lead” the firing of Seward on Dec. 16. Going into the evaluation meeting, I had no idea how other assembly members were going to act concerning Seward. My opinion of Seward’s performance was based on my own observation and interactions with Seward, news accounts, and testimony of borough employees and others who came to me with concerns. My feeling was that Seward did not exhibit the judgment or diligence to perform the job effectively, that he acted outside his authority, and that on personnel matters, he showed conduct that reflected adversely on his position and on the borough.
Further, I also did not discern that Seward was improving on the job and believed his termination was warranted. I said as much at the outset of the Dec. 16 meeting.
The Dec. 16 meeting allowed Seward a full opportunity to address the concerns contained in the evaluations and in assembly comments.
I was aware of no other process, delineated in Seward’s contract or elsewhere, for addressing Seward’s job performance, other than the six-month evaluation. Individual assembly members are schooled early that they are not, individually, to give direction to the manager. All direction must come from the body collectively.
The timing of Seward’s evaluation (just before Christmas) was established in the wording of his contract (six months from his start date in mid-June) and was portrayed to assembly members by the administration as set in stone.
Each assembly member was directed by Mayor Jan Hill to fill out an evaluation form and return it to the borough office by Dec. 7, more than a week before the scheduled Dec. 16 meeting with Seward to discuss his evaluation. At what time the assembly’s written evaluations were shared with Seward was a decision made by Mayor Hill.
(In a Nov. 28 e-mail to Seward, assembly member Heather Lende expressed displeasure with the evaluation form and asked that department heads be allowed to submit comments. Those requests were rebuffed by Hill and Seward.)
Seward, not the assembly, made the decision that his evaluation meeting be held in public.
I came to much of my opinion about Seward’s job performance after reading his job description and comparing it to Seward’s actions as recently as this month. The first sentence in the borough manager job description is: “The borough manager implements policy as set by the borough assembly and is the chief administrative officer of the borough reporting directly to the assembly and working at their will.”
Seward’s directive to staff July 6 to postpone the harbor project reflected that he either misunderstood or disregarded the very first sentence of his job description regarding his authority. (Seward’s job description is virtually identical to language in borough code describing the manager’s authority and responsibility: “The (manager) position is responsible for carrying out the administration of borough government and duties as directed by the borough assembly.”)
At a meeting with assembly members following the July 6 incident, assembly member Margaret Friedenauer asked Seward if he was aware that he didn’t have the authority to postpone the project, or did he understand and just do it anyway.
According to a July 14 Chilkat Valley News story, “Friedenauer encouraged Seward to develop ideas and share them with the assembly, but emphasized who was in charge. ‘I stress that they are ideas, suggestions and recommendations, not directives,’” Friedenauer was quoted as saying.
Seward’s disregard or ignorance of the parameters of his authority continued and was evident as recently as this month.
Shortly after coming on the job, Seward told school district officials that he wanted to place a police officer in the schools. Seward was told by school officials the district was not interested in such an arrangement. Despite that, earlier this month, Seward told school officials he was still pursuing an officer in the schools. To my knowledge, the Haines Borough Assembly never directed Seward to get a police officer in the school.
In November, Seward told the assembly he was scheduling “open house” meetings with residents over the implications of a loss to state trooper service. Seward was not directed by the assembly to schedule such meetings and the assembly had not taken up the trooper issue other than discussion of a letter to troopers opposing loss of trooper service. Scheduling meetings is, in itself, a small matter, but it reveals that Seward continued acting at his own, self-determined direction.
The day after the said letter to troopers was defeated by a vote of the assembly (on the recommendation of Seward), I visited Seward in his office to tell him I was not trying to work at cross-purposes to him. Seward told me that he had reconsidered and he now believed the letter was a good idea and that he was preparing wording of an assembly resolution in favor of such a letter.
That Seward could “change his mind” on an assembly action reflected to me Seward’s basic misunderstanding or disregard for the scope of his job: Seward works at the direction of the assembly. He is the assembly’s employee and does not have autonomy outside of assembly’s directives. After nearly six months on the job, it’s not clear Seward ever appreciated the difference.
Even more troublesome than acting outside his authority were examples I believed that reflected Seward’s poor judgment, particularly involving personnel matters.
I heard first-hand reports from staff who had run-ins with Seward, and from members of the public, most notably an alleged threat in November to the company employing Gershon Cohen. There was also Seward’s directive to ban two members of the public from city hall. The latter two actions, I believe, posed a potential legal liability risk to the municipality. The city hall ban cost the borough legal fees.
Some of the other points about Seward’s management I raised at the Dec. 16 evaluation were:
Seward demonstrated lack of contract administration Nov. 8 when he questioned an assembly suggestion that the per-diem costs of the Corvis bid ($90 daily for meals) were excessive. “Just know, they’ll just shift the cost to something else at the end of the day,” Seward said. Actually, renegotiation of sections of such contracts is common, municipal officials from other communities have informed me.
Seward, in his weekly reports, provided a lack of information on what he personally accomplished between meetings. Despite assurances during his job interview that “I write my own reports,” it appeared his reports were a compilation of accomplishments submitted by various departments.
Seward’s cancellation of the Nov. 23 assembly meeting for a small amount of snow, I believe, contributed to the borough missing a deadline for cost of the steel breakwater expansion, adding $35,000 to the cost of the project.
Seward directed a half-dozen or more staff to attend an assembly retreat on assembly priorities on Sunday, Dec. 11, a questionable use of borough pay for a discussion that was about assembly priorities.
Despite his interview claim to be a “creative problem solver,” I have not seen Seward make meaningful contributions to thorny issues facing the borough government in the form of recommendations for assembly action. He spent money on an unnecessary workplace study and discussed a $20,000 study to determine harbor rates, actions I interpreted as shifting his workload to others.
I do not mean for this posting to be an indictment of Bill Seward, who is a decent man. I share it to explain the conclusion I reached regarding Seward’s position with the borough. Also, because I have been publicly accused of incompetence on the assembly, I offer it as evidence of the work I did reaching my decision.
Would more direction from the assembly or training make Seward a good borough manager? I was doubtful because I perceived Seward’s shortcomings to be in the realms of diligence (doing his homework, including about his authority) and judgment (his gut response to problems). Those, I believe, are inherent traits.
Also, from statements Dec. 16 made by assemblyman Mike Case, it appears Seward was dismissive of a training opportunity to “job shadow” interim manager Brad Ryan. In addition, after cancellation due to weather of a Sept. 8 “onboarding” exercise concerning Seward with recruiting firm Brimeyer Fursman and the assembly, that “check-up” was not rescheduled.
Did Seward deserve more of a chance? The assembly could have done more to help him, but how much more was reasonable? Seward understood at the outset that he had no experience in municipal management, a field requiring expertise. He had a short time to assimilate much information and put it to use. It was incumbent on him to demonstrate he was up to the job, as he was being paid nearly $100,000 and serving in a position of highest administrative authority.
My considered opinion was that Seward was not making sufficient progress to merit his continued employment. His responses at the Dec. 16 evaluation did not dissuade me of that opinion or provide reasonable expectation his performance would improve.
I welcome phone calls and visits from constituents who have further questions about this matter. I’m at 766-3775 and at my office at Third and Main. Also, I recommend listening to a recording of the Dec. 16 assembly meeting. There’s much more information there about the how the assembly ultimately came to its action to dismiss Seward.
I wish Seward the best in his future. Certainly, the borough must move from here, and I pledge to make every effort to ease that transition. I remain committed to moving the Haines Borough forward and to serving you. Thank you.