City manager announced his resignation during a focus group session, consultant says

By Morgan Rothborne, Ashland.news

Ashland City Council and Ashland Parks & Recreation Commissioners sat in a joint session Monday to review the strengths and weaknesses illuminated by the city’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access report. 

Through a data gathering period in the fall and winter of 2023, the report found a strong culture of accountability, personal responsibility and a dedication to serve the public throughout the city organization, said Tanya Settles of Paradigm Public Relations, the firm contracted by the city to perform the assessment. The report found employees respect and feel respected by one another and their direct supervisors.  

“Their perceptions of respect further up the organizational hierarchy, respect kind of diminished as we got to the top,” she said. 

She noted much of the distrust was directed at the previous City Council and the previous city manager. 

“The previous city manager resigned his position. It was actually during a focus group and employees reacted to that in real time with us present,” Settles said. 

In an email Tuesday, Interim City Manager Sabrina Cotta stated she was not present at the focus group in question and could not therefore comment. Also in a Tuesday email, Settles declined to comment due to confidentiality expectations within the focus groups.

The report also found a high incidence of microaggressions against women and to a lesser extent, those identifying as LGBTQIA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and/or questioning, intersex, asexual) and those with disabilities. 

At the close of the presentation, Cotta detailed initiatives the city has taken on to improve. 

The city now has a Human Resources director, a position that was noticeably vacant during the assessment. The city added two analysts to that department and started a practice of “HR Roadshows,” where HR staff visit other departments in the city to keep HR visible and accessible for employees. 

Cotta said she has instituted a weekly internal newsletter and report from the city manager’s office and listening sessions with city staff of all levels. The city also has structured social activities for its employees, including an optional book club. 

Employees will now receive consistent performance evaluations throughout the year and soon a new employee handbook to provide a broad standard of conduct. Harassment training has been completed and will be annual while implicit bias training will be held in the future, Cotta said. 

Settles encouraged councilors and commissioners to support Cotta’s initiatives because they were consistent but offered a variety between mandatory and voluntary opportunities for employees to develop a healthy equitable organizational culture. 

Stefani Seffinger, now APRC Commissioner and previously a city councilor, asked about microaggressions toward elected officials and stated she had witnessed it many times in the past. 

Cotta stated she could work with the city’s legal and HR departments to determine how best to address this issue as employees and elected officials have different protections. 

Seffinger also asked that APRC Commissioners be included with council in working on DEIA issues within the city and on city initiatives more broadly. Mayor Tonya Graham responded that councilors and commissioners should work together and join city staff in the same DEIA work they are expected to do. 

In other council business Monday, Community Development Director Brandon Goldman explained new points of leverage for the city’s affordable housing shortage available through Oregon Senate Bill 1537. 

The city could extend its urban growth boundary by up to 50 acres, he said. But this will be challenging because during previous regional planning, only Ashland and Jacksonville declined to identify “urban reserve areas,” for this kind of expansion. Ashland is also flanked by “resource lands,” such as agricultural or forest land. 

If some landowners were interested and the soil of said land was found to be subpar for agriculture, Ashland could obtain some additional land to build on, he said. But the city would have to take steps to pursue this option and the opportunity to expand would be something of a one time deal, he said. 

Echo Fields and Jan Calvin presented a progress update from the Homelessness Master Plan Subcommittee. The subcommittee is expected to release a final report in June to guide the city in best utilizing its limited resources to contend with homelessness. Fields said the group has formed a plan and a timeline to reach its goal. 

“Given that caveat of delivering back to you by the end of June, we’ll do as much as we can get done and it may set some groundwork for additional explorations,” Calvin said. 

During the public comment period, Debbie Neieswander stated the situation on the city’s “night lawn,” also known as the dusk-to-dawn sleeping area behind the Ashland City Council chamber building on East Main Street, was “not reasonable.” 

“Reasonable is when we all come together, we come up with something and it’s a win-win situation,” she said. 

Neisewander reported Ashland police officers implementing inconsistent standards for the sleeping area, including what she said were frequent tickets for minor infractions. Karen Greenwood, who sustained burn injuries during a January incident on the night lawn, told the council she has received four tickets since returning from a hospital in Portland to the city of Ashland in February. 

Yukon Smith stated he had experienced tickets for issues such as size of his tent or its placement without first being informed of the city’s rules. He echoed his fellow night lawn guests in questioning the city’s rules that those sleeping in the area remove their tents every day. 

“Having to move your tent every day, that wears’em out faster than having to take’em down. … The public knows it’s there, they just don’t want to see it. Why don’t they just let us keep the stuff in the backyard where they don’t see it?” he said. 

Email Ashland.news reporter Morgan Rothborne at [email protected].

Related story: City of Ashland DEI assessment highlights culture with strong strengths — and weaknesses