City Council fires Brocato

Published 2:47 pm Wednesday, June 10, 2009

By a 4-3 vote, Council removes the city manager, who was hired in January 2007

By a 4-3 vote, the Baker City Council fired City Manager Steve Brocato Tuesday night.

Brocato was hired in January 2007.

Councilors cited communications problems, Brocato’s periodic

unwillingness to listen to them, and his treatment of councilors and

members of the public as contributing factors toward his termination.

Retired City Attorney Tim Collins became the interim city manager this morning. His salary will be set during a special City Council meeting at 9 o’clock Friday morning at City Hall, 1655 First St.

This is Collins’ second stint as interim city manager. The first started in March 2003 when City Manager Gordon Zimmerman resigned at the Council’s request.

Councilor Milo Pope, an attorney and former Circuit Court judge who voted against the motion to fire Brocato, vowed he’d sue the four people who voted for the motion – Mayor Dennis Dorrah and councilors Beverly Calder, Clair Button and Aletha Bonebrake.

Pope accused the four of meeting in violation of Oregon’s Open Meetings Law on their way to gathering the votes to terminate Brocato.

Pope joined councilors Sam Bass and Andrew Bryan opposing the termination.

“You are about to make a grave mistake and you’re not going to get away with it as long as I am around,” Pope told his colleagues. “We are at odds, and we are the laughingstock of all the good cities of Oregon.”

Bonebrake denied any violation of state law – which would have meant an unannounced meeting of four or more councilors, a quorum of the body – and Calder said she wasn’t worried about the lawsuit.

Dorrah and Bonebrake met with Brocato Tuesday afternoon and asked for his resignation, which Brocato declined to tender. That led to Tuesday night’s showdown, which was not televised on Cable Channel 3 due to a problem with a switch.

Four current councilors – Dorrah, Calder, Bass and Bryan – were on the job when Brocato was hired in January 2007. Brocato got the city’s top job after Klamath Falls’ community development director, Sandra Zaida, turned down the Council’s offer.

A large crowd, consisting mainly of city employees but other residents, too, was on hand to defend Brocato and castigate the councilors who voted to fire Brocato. Dorrah did not allow residents to speak until after the vote had been taken, but before a second vote – to reconsider the termination – had occurred.

Brocato took issue with Dorrah’s decision not to hear from the public before the initial vote was taken.

“I have difficulty with this council not accepting public interaction when I have been criticized for that,” he said.

As the crowd filed out following the vote to reconsider, people called out, “Boycott Bella!” and “Boycott York’s,” businesses owned by Calder and Dorrah, respectively. People were also talking about recalling the four councilors, and a Facebook page, “We support Steve Brocato,” had been established by Jacki Adams this morning.

“My hope,” said Greg Sackos following the first vote, “is for the city of Baker to emerge with a governing body that conducts itself with calm thoughtfulness and the kind of intellect I think you are capable of.”

“Have you considered the damage this does to the community?” asked Alan Blair, chair of the Baker City Planning Commission and its Budget Board. “How much thought went into your decision? This tears the guts out of the community.”

But not everyone voiced support for Brocato.

“I served eight years on the City Council, and in my eight years all I learned was that this community has a slimy underbelly,” said Richard Langrell. “Tonight the four of you made me prouder than at any point in my life. If people would have known about this (Brocato’s imminent firing), this room would have been packed with people in support of the four of you.”

Just two weeks ago, Brocato received an average score of 3.89 out of 5 on his evaluation by the seven councilors.

“This is an incompetent City Council,” Bryan said. “Through Steve’s leadership and skills we have built a competent city administration and a functioning municipal government. … I don’t know for the life of me how we as an incompetent city council intend to go forward as a governing body with a myriad of projects under way with any modicum of success.

“We are moving toward a seminal moment, and we’ve been there before,” Bryan said, citing divisive experiences such as the December 2001 recall of Councilor Gary Dielman and the often acrimonious 2002 campaign for county commission chair between Brian Cole and Fred Warner Jr. “Two weeks ago we did an evaluation that gave little indication we would be removing the city manager. Don’t think for a moment that sending Steve home will remedy the issue that apparently a majority of this Council thinks exists.”

Bonebrake said firing Brocato “is a sad occasion I don’t enter in lightly.

“I’ve spoken many times about your defiance and your unwillingness to listen,” she told Brocato. “I’ve heard you say critical things about other members of the Council that lead me to understand you can’t work with members of the council. … When we do get things, they arrive quite late to be dealt with and we rush through them and are belittled if we ask a question as if we have no faith in city employees. I have enormous faith in city employees, but not being able to ask questions or to be barred either by intimidation or not having information, I find destructive to functioning. I am deeply disturbed at tempers displayed toward Council and the public. I think someone who runs a city should have better control.”

Bass said that the three councilors elected last November – Pope, Bonebrake and Button – had “been shown the whole city” by Brocato, and predicted that the city “would spend a whole heck of a lot of money trying to replace (Brocato).

“All these folks out here,” Bass said, referring to the large turnout of city employees, “are going to have problems (Wednesday), and who are you going to go to? You don’t seem to care,” he said to the four councilors voting for termination. “You’re throwing a good man away. For the next few years (of Bass’ council term) I’m going to be a pain in the butt.”