*for the low, low price of $256,000.
The shambolic firing of Salem City Manager Keith Stahley by Mayor Julie Hoy.
To her backers, Julie Hoy's name and civic ignorance made her the ideal candidate to replace Ward 6 City Councilor Chris Hoy after he elected Mayor. She was elected by a narrow margin in 2022. As a Councilor, her stubborn and vocal disbelief in the City's General Fund deficit and refusal to support any revenue measures were instrumental in forcing the City to make painful cuts to services, and made her an attractive candidate to beat Chris Hoy in the 2024 Mayoral race.
Hoy's particular antipathy for Stahley can be traced to April 2024, just after she beat Chris Hoy in the race for Mayor, when Stahley failed to respond in the proper spirit to her efforts to promote a Salem tire shop for a city contract. See McDonald, A. "Julie Hoy's efforts to promote tire business prompted city ethics warning." (11 April 2024, Salem Reporter.) That episode no doubt informed the subsequent decision to audit of the City Manager's office, which resulted in an unfavorable audit report. See Alexander, R and Siess, J. "Report faults Salem city manager's leadership, urges changes." (19 December 2024, Salem Reporter.) In the weeks that followed the report, Hoy engaged in questionable communications about Stahley's leadership with Councilors Gwyn, Matthews, Nishioka and Varney (a majority of council). These communications are now before the Oregon Ethics Commission, which has yet to make a probable cause determination. As a result of said communications, Nishioka, who happens to be Council President, paid Stahley a visit to let him know that the Mayor had told her she had a majority of Council ready to ask for his resignation. Stahley submitted his letter of resignation a couple of days later.
News of the resignation broke the next day during the lunch hour. See Siess, J. "Stahley out as Salem city manager." (10 February 2025, Salem Reporter.) That evening, in executive session, the City Council voted to accept Stahley's resignation. On the third day, the issue rose again. See Siess, J. "Mayor Julie Hoy set in motion events that led to Keith Stahley's abrupt resignation." (13 February 2025, Salem Reporter.) Our first post on this story, soon to be deleted, followed "Councilor Micki Varney breaks the silence about city manager's resignation", and the February 15 press release from the City Attorney's office:
City Attorney's Office Statement
Questions have been raised concerning potential public meeting violations relating to the events leading up to the resignation of former Salem City Manager Keith Stahley. Those concerns are based on an inaccurate understanding of those events. As City Attorney I was asked for guidance from members of Council concerning this matter. Based on my knowledge of this matter and 18 years advising the City concerning Oregon public records law, I am confident that no public meetings laws were violated and all members of City Council acted consistent with advice from the City Attorney concerning Oregon public meeting laws:
- Mayor Julie Hoy had individual communications with different members of City Council concerning Keith Stahley's performance and potential separation from the City.
- Prior to those communications, Mayor Julie Hoy consulted with me, as City Attorney. I advised the Mayor that one-on-one conversations with other members of Council did not violate public meeting law or constitute "serial meetings." It is my understanding that the Mayor did not attempt to coordinate a collective decision among members of council through her individual discussions with councilors.
- As part of her effort to communicate with members of City Council concerning this issue, Mayor Julie Hoy spoke on the phone with Councilor Nishioka.
- After meeting with Mayor Julie Hoy, Councilor Nishioka decided to discuss this subject with Keith Stahley.
- At that meeting, Councilor Nishioka asked Keith Stahley if he would consider resigning.
- Councilor Nishioka never said that she was City Council's "duly authorized representative" or implied she was speaking on behalf of City Council.
- Keith Stahley emailed his resignation letter to the City Attorney on Sunday evening, February 9, 2025. By Monday morning the 10th, he had removed his personal effects from his office, including removing his nameplate from the door and left his City-issued mobile phone and key on his desk. He informed staff he would not be in the office on Monday.
- Keith Stahley was only eligible for severance benefits if the Council asked him to resign or terminated him.
- Stahley's resignation letter stated that Nishioka said she was "the duly authorized representative of City Council" acting on Council's behalf. That language is straight from Stahley's employment agreement concerning severance benefits. Stahley used that exact language apparently because it was consistent with the language in his employment agreement concerning his eligibility for severance, not because Nishioka ever uttered those words.
- Prior to the City Council meeting on Monday, February 10, 2025, Council conducted an executive session to consider Keith Stahley's resignation. The discussion that occurred at that executive session is confidential and may not be disclosed, even by members of Council. That executive session was the first instance where Council collectively discussed Mr. Stahley's resignation.
- At the City Council meeting, Council accepted Stahley's resignation and deemed his resignation to be at the request of Council. City Council took that action, in that manner, to allow Stahley to receive severance benefits, in recognition of his service to the City and the circumstances of his resignation.
Our comment was not posted here, but directly to the CANDO Archive FB page, which has since been repossessed by the neighborhood association. (See here.)
Go Joe Siess and Salem Reporter--we sure aren't going to get the whole truth on Mayor Julie Hoy's shambolic firing of the City Manager without their continued pressure. It is now clear that Hoy either violated Oregon Public Meeting Law in determining that a majority of Council secretly agreed he should be axed (the latest statement from City Attorney Dan Atchison* notwithstanding), or she lied to or misled Councilor Nishioka to that effect. Councilor "who will rid me of this terrible priest" Nishioka should have put the public interest over her own long before now and said what she knows. Councilor Nishioka, we are WAITING.*Atchison wants us to believe Stahley lied in his resignation letter, that Nishioka did NOT represent to him that a majority of Council wanted him out, and by implication that resigning was his own idea (voluntary), which would mean he was NOT entitled to a quarter million severance under the Contract! So, Mr. City Attorney, are you saying, in effect, that Council GAVE AWAY a quarter million tax payer General Fund dollars to a former employee who was FRAUDED into resigning because they felt--what, generous? guilty? And without ANY PUBLIC INPUT in the middle of a General Fund BUDGET CRISIS?
These people. Anyway, thanks Joe and Salem Reporter. [15 February 2025]
We had all better hope and pray we don't have a situation that calls for City Leadership any time soon--because we obviously ain't got any right now. (Sorry, Dan) You fired the paid guy, Mayor and City Council, it's past time to step into the void you created and face your constituents! We need answers! And if we lose the Salem Public Library (Salem, OR) or Center 50+ or Parks because of a failure of confidence in your obviously amateurish judgment, you have only yourselves to blame! [16 February 2026]
Among the many observations to be made about this self-contradictory statement [of Nishioka's] is that if I, the President of the City Council, go to speak to the City Manager and "communicate" that "Mayor Julie Hoy told me that a majority of councilors believed [he] should consider resigning", I can't credibly claim I did not "tell [City Manager] I represented the City Council", now can I?
The next day, Salem Reporter published, "City reverses course, saying councilor never asked city manager to resign" and we posted:
What's on our mind? Direction via indirection. How powerful people let it be known what the answer wants to be. So the City is crawling all over itself to craft a version of events that explains how the City Manager Keith Stahley voluntarily resigned in the utterly mistaken belief he had been told to do so, after the Council President came to him and told him that "Mayor Julie Hoy had told me that a majority of councilors believed he should consider resigning" (President's very own words, not City Attorney's crafty interpretation). This, friends, is called direction via indirection. The classic example is Henry II, who let it be known he was unhappy with a certain "turbulent" or "meddlesome" priest. In that case also, no one could agree just what was said. A contemporary account has it that his minions understood the priest was to be dispatched 12th century style after he said, "What miserable drones and traitors have I nourished and brought up in my household, who let their lord be treated with such shameful contempt by a low-born cleric?" More recent examples of direction via indirection abound, ref. the First Reign of King Donald. We all know this is how people with power operate, what's galling is that City Leadership (Mayor, City Attorney, Council President) try to pretend otherwise. 18 February 2025
After six weeks waiting for the City to respond to public records requests and for Joe Siess to sift through it and gather official comment, as much as is likely ever to be shared with the peasants public was shared. See Seiss, J. "Records reveal Nishioka wanted to sue Hoy after Stahley resigned." (25 March 2025, Salem Reporter). The consensus over on Reddit was that Julie Hoy, who has been utterly silent on the matter, should resign. See r/SALEM, City Council Beef. But that is not something that people like Julie Hoy do, certainly not before it is known whether this affair will be what kills the livability levy in May. If it does fail, and there are drastic cuts to library, Center 50+ and parks services, she might take some responsibility, but she probably won't, and she certainly won't resign.
