This story first appeared in the February/March Issue of the Zephyr. We’re reprinting it here, in smaller sections, to make it easier for our readers to absorb the information.

NOTE:  In preparing this article about Moab’s city manager Rebecca Davidson, the Moab City Council’s actions re: Ms. Davidson and the subsequent “restructuring” of Moab government, The Zephyr sought information from a variety of sources. We filed Freedom of Information Act requests, via the Wyoming Sunshine Laws, with the City of Kemmerer, Wyoming and the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. We filed a Government Records Access request (GRAMA) with the City of Moab, and we conducted interviews with numerous people personally involved in the issues raised here. We also contacted reporter Trevor Hughes, now of USA Today, who wrote a comprehensive article about the current Moab City manager’s tenure as city manager in Timnath, Colorado.

On January 11, we sent 15 questions to city manager Rebecca Davidson, in an effort to “clarify and resolve” issues raised in this article. She did not respond (Those questions are available to the reader elsewhere in this issue). Finally, we contacted the Moab City Attorney, Christopher McAnany, to seek clarification on the process used to fulfill our GRAMA request with Moab City. His January 24 response, which he noted was, “in lieu of any further response from  Ms. Davidson,”  is included elsewhere in this issue, and excerpted later in this article. Finally, we offer the City of Moab the opportunity to reply. But please note that all correspondence with this publication will be regarded as ‘on the record.’…JS

JENNIFER LASIK

Jennifer Lasik.

Jennifer Lasik came to Kemmerer in 2008. She’d been a history and geography teacher at a private religious school in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, but in 2004-05, Lasik went back to college and secured a Masters in Public Administration.  She was subsequently hired by Kemmerer’s previous city manager, Michael Archibald, as the city’s Events Center Director and still occupied that position when Davidson arrived in 2012.

Relations between Davidson and Lasik were excellent at first, and in January 2013, Davidson expanded Lasik’s duties, along with a new job title. The Kemmerer Gazette reported that, “Jennifer Lasik has seen her position metamorphose, too. As the city’s newly titled ‘cultural arts and events director,’ she’s moved from just managing the facility and associated events to managing other city events as well.”

In a memo to Lasik in 2012, Davidson wrote, “I wanted to take a few minutes to focus on some positive things that I have noted in your performance and teamwork…. I am glad that you are a part of this team.”

On several occasions,  Lasik and her husband Adam invited Davidson and her husband to their home for dinner.

But in late summer, 2013, Davidson’s high praise for Lasik vanished. Though Lasik had sensed something might be wrong as far back as June, Davidson first questioned Lasik’s job performance at an August 30 city council meeting. Two weeks later, Lasik received a long memorandum from her boss. (The Zephyr obtained copies of these emails via a Freedom of Information request to the City of Kemmerer.)

“Over the past several months,” Davidson complained,  “I have become steadily more concerned with your performance and your frequent absences from the City for a variety of reasons,” which included, “taking out of town trips, you taking a multitude of periods of time off,  you working inconsistent hours, and you not working during the day because you chose to take your daughter to personal events as well as dentist and doctors appointments.”

“Additionally,” she added, “I have watched you ‘drop the ball’ and not accomplish your work including timely organization of events, staffing the visitor center and perform other duties over which you are in charge. I have noticed a marked change in your ability to manage your department and the responsibilities given to you as a department head.”

When observing your work habits,” Davidson continued,  “I note that on a regular basis you do not come to work before 9 a.m., you take a lunch period and generally leave at or before 5 p.m. Additionally, I do not see you at work in the evenings, which I have been monitoring lately because of the concerns I describe above. This causes me to have an additional concern or question of how you accrue the Executive Leave that the City policy clearly provides with these kinds of hours.”

Davidson concluded, “As you can clearly discern from this letter, I have serious concerns that you are not adequately or properly managing your job and its responsibilities. I am unclear why this may be and welcome any response you may have to the concerns I have specifically described above.”

Two weeks later, Lasik responded at length, with a five page memorandum of her own, noting her surprise that Davidson believed the quality of her work had declined since April–and that she was just now telling her. “I was surprised by this and asked for examples,” Lasik wrote. “You said that you couldn’t give me details, it was more of an impression, although if you thought about it, you could probably give examples. When I asked why you hadn’t expressed that or talked to me before August 30^th, you stated that you were ‘waiting for me to come to you.’ When I pointed out that I had approached you twice, you said that this isn’t like kindergarten, it’s more like college, that I needed to figure some things out for myself.”

Lasik added, “At that meeting, I asked you to watch my performance the next few weeks and told you that I would check in with you again. You agreed. I left feeling that things would improve between us from that point since you had been able to express your concerns and I had agreed to pay attention to my time and productivity. Our interaction did not seem to improve much since then. I feel that there is some kind of personal element involved, but I do not know what that would be.”

Lasik’s long letter then attempted to address specifically  to Davidson’s criticisms. She wrote, “I dropped off a binder to your office that contains a detailed response to your email… In addition to my responses, wherever possible I attached documentation and/or verification of what I was saying. I’m not certain that you were looking for that detailed of a response from me, but I felt it important to include documentation and full explanations because of your concerns over my performance, the changes you want implemented, and most of all because I feel there is an implication that you are questioning my veracity, and I wanted to demonstrate that things are as I say or have said.”But Lasik tried to end her long letter on a conciliatory note:

“Rebecca, it is not my wish,” Lasik explained, “to be antagonistic to you or to make things worse. I just feel as though some of the assumptions or perceptions you have are not fair and are not accurate and it is important to me to explain as best I can where I am coming from and what my steps have been to solve any misperceptions as well as to correct any missteps on my part. I so admire your ability, intelligence, work ethic and most importantly your vision for Kemmerer. I want to work in harmony on the goals you set and to be part of the City team.”

Lasik concluded,  “I work best and am most productive when I am able to discuss things with you, bounce things off of you, and be ‘in sync.’ I am interested in getting back to that place, and am actively working on the things you have set before me. Please let me know what we need to discuss further and how to proceed.”

Davidson, according to Lasik, did not reply directly to the letter. Instead more disagreements followed. On October 7, Davidson questioned Lasik’s time sheet, regarding a couple hours she took off. Lasik replied that she, “came in at 10 am because I had a doctor’s appointment (which you approved).”

On October 8, in another memo, Davidson notified Lasik that she would be required to reduce all Events center staff to 12 hours/week, “because of your high expenditures of employees…Is this being implemented?”

And Davidson inquired about food costs at the visitor center: “In looking through the costs for food, etc.  Can you answer when the last time we ordered ice cream bars and when was the last time we utilized those?”

Clearly frustrated, Lasik replied, “I have no idea.” She offered to check all the Sysco receipts for the past year and asked, “Would you like me to do that?” And she reminded Davidson that, “when the freezer fluctuated to 80 degrees a few months ago…a lot had to be thrown out.”

That afternoon,  October 8, 2015. Lasik resigned. She hand-delivered the letter to her boss. In part, Lasik wrote, “It was my sincere hope that you and I could come to some kind of reconciliation and that through doing the things you have directed me to do and focusing on the things you have asked, our goals would come back in line and our working relationship would be restored. This morning it became clear that those hopes will not be realized…I wish the Event Center, the advisory board, the city council and the community at large the best of success.”

Lasik gave the city almost a month’s notice, writing that her last day would be November 1, but with plans, as her resignation letter noted, to take some leave days in mid-October.On October 16, Lasik took a sick day and stayed home, but two hours later, the chief of police, Stacy Buck, arrived at her door. According to the Kemmerer City Police report:

On 10/16/2013, I was requested by the City Administrator to go to 1**2 North S******t Dr and deliver the final pay stub to Jennifer Lasik and collect any property belonging to the City of Kemmerer. I made contact and delivered an envelope to Lasik and collected from her a City of Kemmerer Visa card and a Samsung cell phone in a blue case. Lasik stated that her keys were in her personal car and that her husband had taken that car to work. Lasik made arrangements to have her husband deliver the keys to me by 1700 hours on this date. I then went to the South Lincoln Training and Events Center and met with Cathy Bluemel. Bluemel and I went through the rest of the list of City owned items that I had been given. All items were accounted for in the SLTEC. I did observe that one of the Ipods had a shattered screen.

Lasik had hoped she could help with the transition, but she never returned to her Kemmerer job. Later in the month, Lasik interviewed for a position in Evanston, Illinois and was eventually hired to be its Cultural Arts Coordinator. Over the winter, as Lasik settled into her new job and what she described as a much healthier work environment, memories of Kemmerer began to fade.

But on March 4, 2014, almost five months after her last working day in Kemmerer, Lasik received a call from an agent at the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, informing her, for the first time, that based on allegations by Kemmerer city manager Rebecca Davidson, his department was pursuing evidence in a case, regarding possible theft and misuse of government funds and property. The DCI report stated:

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013, Special Agent (SA) Jack Killey of the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), South West Enforcement Team (SWET), received a FAX copy of a request for DCI assistance from the City of Kemmerer, Wyoming, Police Chief, Stacy Buck (Enclosure #1). The request stated that Chief Buck had been contacted by the Kemmerer City Administrator, Rebecca Davidson, in regard to a former city employee who had possibly, fraudulently used city funds.

Via a search of Kemmerer City records from the FOIA request, The Zephyr obtained handwritten notes from Davidson, reflecting her change of heart. It appears the notes were written sometime in late July. Davidson wrote:

“I have begun to organize my thoughts & findings RE: JL (Jennifer Lasik) and her employment at SLC (SP?)” And she saw the issue in several categories, including: “Embezzlement,” “Fraud,” “Misuse of city money,” “Inappropriate recording of time,” and “Poor management.”

There is no evidence, however, that Davidson ever accused Lasik of criminal activity while she was employed in Kemmerer.

Now, in an October 29, 2013 interview with DCI, Davidson provided a laundry list of allegations, including, “unusual credit card charges” and  “irregularities” on her travel expenses, and claimed that at one point, Lasik “could only produce $10 of the $100 petty cash fund.” Later, Davidson conceded,  Lasik found the missing $90 in another drawer in her desk.

According to the DCI report, Davidson claimed that, “During LASIK’s employment with the city of Kemmerer, there were multiple occasions where LASIK would claim to have mistakenly used the city credit card for personal use. LASIK would then note an IOU for the transaction and repay the city at a later date.”

Davidson also suggested that  Lasik’s husband, a computer technician who occasionally worked on the Event Center computers, had acted illegally. According to the report, “(Davidson) believed that A. Lasik had access to all Events Center computers and deleted information from them when Lasik ended her employment.” And Davidson complained that “invoices were not detailed and did not itemize revenues generated from events and training.”

Finally, according to the DCI report, Davidson claimed to have, “conducted an internet search of LASIK and discovered she had worked for a church in Oak Creek, Wisconsin and possibly left that job due to irregularities with church funds”

In a phone interview with a DCI investigator, on March 4, 2014, Jennifer Lasik responded to the allegations by Davidson. According to the DCI report:

*  “She (Lasik) adamantly denied stealing any money from the Events Center or the City of Kemmerer.”

*  “She had not erased or deleted any city files from the Events Center computers.”
*  At a training event in Oregon, Lasik had used the city credit card during the training. At the end of the session, she rented another car for her own use and she did use the city card, but she reimbursed the city upon her return to Kemmerer.

*  “She had received calls from Event Center clients after she had left the city. The clients told her that the interim Event Center Director did not have their records and it was difficult to book and use the facility. She told them to have the interim director call her and she would instruct them where to find the information.
She was contacted by a former Event Center co-worker and was told that Rebecca Davidson had advised all Event Center employees that contact with her (LASIK) about any city business would result in termination of their employment.”

One Davidson allegation was especially painful to Lasik. In the DCI interview, Davidson inferred that Lasik, in a previous job,  may have absconded “with church funds.” Davidson based her suspicions on an alleged “internet search.” As noted earlier, Lasik worked previously at a private church school in Wisconsin, as a geography and history teacher. She did have a long history with the institution. The principal of the school was the wife of her first cousin.  Her grandfather founded the church and was also the co-pastor, with her uncle, at the time she worked for the school.

Lasik explained that she wasn’t remotely involved in the accounting or finances of either institution and noted, her “record-keeping was limited to attendance-taking and grading tests.”

DCI turned over its report to the Lincoln County Attorney to review. On October 3, 2014 DCI received word that, “The Lincoln County Attorney’s Office has reviewed the information received from DCI regarding the above-named individual (Lasik) and has made the decision to decline prosecution in this matter.” It was signed by Deputy County Attorney Scott Sargent.  Almost a year after Davidson first made the allegations, the status of the case was listed as: “closed.”

Lasik still works for the City of Evanston, Illinois as its Cultural Arts Coordinator. and enjoys the full confidence and support of her supervisors.

Coming in Part 6: TARA SMELT & DARWIN PARKER

Click Here to Read the Full Article!

This story first appeared in the February/March Issue of the Zephyr. We’re reprinting it here, in smaller sections, to make it easier for our readers to absorb the information.

NOTE:  In preparing this article about Moab’s city manager Rebecca Davidson, the Moab City Council’s actions re: Ms. Davidson and the subsequent “restructuring” of Moab government, The Zephyr sought information from a variety of sources. We filed Freedom of Information Act requests, via the Wyoming Sunshine Laws, with the City of Kemmerer, Wyoming and the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. We filed a Government Records Access request (GRAMA) with the City of Moab, and we conducted interviews with numerous people personally involved in the issues raised here. We also contacted reporter Trevor Hughes, now of USA Today, who wrote a comprehensive article about the current Moab City manager’s tenure as city manager in Timnath, Colorado.

On January 11, we sent 15 questions to city manager Rebecca Davidson, in an effort to “clarify and resolve” issues raised in this article. She did not respond (Those questions are available to the reader elsewhere in this issue). Finally, we contacted the Moab City Attorney, Christopher McAnany, to seek clarification on the process used to fulfill our GRAMA request with Moab City. His January 24 response, which he noted was, “in lieu of any further response from  Ms. Davidson,”  is included elsewhere in this issue, and excerpted later in this article. Finally, we offer the City of Moab the opportunity to reply. But please note that all correspondence with this publication will be regarded as ‘on the record.’…JS

TIMNATH & KEMMERER FLASHBACKS

As this publication noted in its first article on the subject, controversy seems to follow Rebecca Davidson wherever she goes. In 2010, Davidson made state headlines, relating to her five year tenure of employment with The City of Timnath, Colorado.

In late December 2010, News 9, the NBC affiliate in Denver, reported that the Timnath Council would meet to “discuss suspended town manager,” Ms. Davidson. According to the report, “Davidson has been manager in Timnath since 2005, working on a contract basis until January, when she became a town employee. Separately, the town has also been paying her engineering firm, IB Engineering, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year…This summer, council members asked for an outside investigation into the town’s contracting and bidding processes. The report by a Colorado Intergovernmental Risk Sharing Agency investigator has not yet been made public.”

It also reported that Timnath’s mayor, Donna Benson, “with whom Davidson has clashed,” had also filed a law suit against the Timnath council, “over secret meetings to hear employee complaints about her. Davidson’s complaints about Benson’s interactions with town staff prompted the secret meetings.”

A week later, Davidson and Timnath were back in the Denver headlines when 9News announced Davidson had resigned. The “three-way deal” ended with Davidson’s resignation and the resolution of a $1 million law suit “brought by Loveland-based Gerrard Excavating Inc. against the 633-resident town and Davidson, who until last year was both town manager and the town engineer responsible for overseeing the Old Town sewer reconstruction project”

9News also reported that, “Davidson was suspended with pay last summer, several weeks after Town Council members received an audit of Timnath finances. Council members cited the need to ‘review invoicing, lack of documentation, fair treatment in the bidding process, town contracts and other processes’ in suspending Davidson but never offered any further specifics.”

The report noted that Timnath officials could not publicly discuss the matter and that, “both sides signed a non-disparagement clause and agreed to keep confidential a report about Davidson written by an outside investigator.”

In a June 19, 2011 “Coloradoan’ article by Trevor Hughes, titled “Timnath Learns Costly Lesson After Paying Millions for Projects,” Hughes offered a more detailed account. He wrote:

“In 2008, the small town of Timnath east of Fort Collins paid half of its $2 million municipal budget to its town manager and her engineering company. And while 2008 was a high point of money paid by the town to former manager Becky Davidson and her firm, IB Engineering, it was by no means the only time Timnath spent a significant portion of its money on her and her company. For several years, Davidson/IB received more than $600,000 annually from Timnath, according to an audit and town financial officials. But a deal struck between the town and Davidson as she left under pressure earlier this year means town officials refuse to answer all but the most basic questions about how town money was spent during her tenure. Town officials say a nondisparagement clause they signed in January means they can’t discuss how Davidson ran the town. “I’m going to let the past speak for the past,” new Timnath Mayor Jill Grossman-Belisle said. “We’re trying to use this as an opportunity to learn.”

In the Coloradoan, Hughes explained the city of Timnath’s dilemma. In part, he wrote:

“…court records show that the town was preparing to sue Davidson over design flaws and errors in the Old Town sewer project. In a court motion, Timnath’s lawyers said Davidson’s actions as the town engineer ‘fell below’ the standards expected of a professional engineer. “‘As part of the process of working with Gerrard to finish the project…the town has discovered that the IB defendants made errors in both the design and the administration of the project,’ attorneys with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Shreck LLP said in a Nov. 23, 2010 filing. ‘As part of its work on the project during the fall of 2010…the town discovered errors and omission in the plans and specifications prepared by IB defendants. The town has also discovered instances in which the IB defendants’ management of the project fell below the applicable standard of care…’”

(NOTE: Up until the 30th of January, as far as we know, the article was available for public viewing via The Coloradoan’s’ paid archives for $3.95. That’s how we were able to read it. On January 30th, however, we found the link was broken. The links above refer to a cached version of the page. As far as we can tell, the full version still exists in the paid archives. 9News printed a shorter version of the article by Hughes, which contains most of the relevant information. That article can be viewed for free.)

According to the article and court documents,  Davidson received a settlement that included nine months of paid salary.. Years later, as Moab’s city manager,  Davidson felt ten weeks of severance pay was sufficient for Olsen, who had been employed by Moab City for 25 years.

The Moab City Council became aware of the Timnath controversy before Davidson was hired. The Zephyr’s GRAMA search of city documents shows several related emails between Councilwoman Peterson, Moab Police Chief Mike Navarre, who took charge of vetting city manager candidates, and City Recorder Rachel Stenta. While some of the emails have been redacted, Peterson’s original email makes it clear the subject is Davidson and Timnath, though it appears no one in Moab dug very deeply into the “mess” Peterson mentions…

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Kirstin Peterson <kirstin.m.p@gmail.com> wrote:

http://archive.9news.com/news/article/174983/346/Timnathtownmanager12/ 18/2015
City of Moab Mail Fw: interesting article
Sounds like there was quite the mess over there though nothing says there
was any wrongdoing on Rebecca’s part. I haven’t been able to track down
anyone to speak with yet from this area but I have gotten some good
feedback on (redacted).
Cheers, Kirstin

On Feb 23, 2015, at 3:18 PM, Rachel Stenta <rstenta@moabcity.org> wrote:

I’ve requested a copy of the supplemental audit from the Town that has the
final outcome. She was cleared of any allegations or wrong doing. I’ll share it
with you when I get it.
Rachel E. Stenta

On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 9:33 PM, Mike Navarre <chief@moabcity.org> wrote:

I have tried several times to contact, (redacted) Town Marshall for a reference check on (redacted)  No

Police Chief Mike Navarre.

response. I left voice mail, no response to my calls.

Mike

On Tuesday, February 24, 2015 9:17 AM, Rachel Stenta <rstenta@moabcity.org> wrote:

I have received no response as well (from ) (redacted). I did get a call back from one reference who was the former legal representative for (redacted) . So far I have return calls from 1 out of 3. I believe Mayor Dave has a couple of references and was planning on speaking to the current Mayor.
Rachel E. Stenta

That’s where the discussion ends. There are no further emails or correspondence on the subject. The “supplemental audit”  referred to by Stenta, which she was still waiting to receive and planned to share with the council, is not in the list of emails. Though  Stenta mentions that Davidson, “was cleared of any allegations or wrong doing,” the report that confirmed it was not included among the GRAMA documents sent to The Zephyr by Stenta. And, in fact, Davidson could not have been “cleared” of anything, because the non-disparagement agreement banned anyone involved in the litigation from expressing any opinion at all.

As for other vetting efforts, there is one other reference in the GRAMA documents, on February 25, when Davidson notifies Stenta, “Could you relay a message to Michael Navarre for me? I just received the fingerprint and consent information from him last night.” The assumption here is that Navarre requested her prints, to run them in the NCIS computers, for possible criminal activity, a procedure that is standard practice for any position of this type.

Spending $3.95 for a copy of Trevor Hughes’ article in ‘The Coloradoan’ may have helped in the vetting process, but nothing suggests that such an effort or expense was made.

* * *

Throughout the 176 pages of GRAMA documents, other than an email from the Moab Sun News,  there is no mention of Davidson’s employment, just prior to Moab, in Kemmerer, Wyoming, population 3000. From 2012 to 2015, Davidson was its city manager. If inquiries were made, they do not show up in GRAMA documents. But just weeks after Davidson was officially offered the position, in late March 2015, Councilwoman Ershadi received an email from the editor of the Moab Sun News.

Moab Sun News editor <moabsunnewseditor@gmail.com>
Date: Friday, April 3, 2015
Subject: Fwd: New City Manager
To: Heila Ershadi <heila4citycouncil@gmail.com>
Hi Heila:
Good morning! Andrew thought that you might be interested in this. It’s one of seven or eight similarly toned messages we’ve received. Some of these people appear to be affiliated with a group that calls itself the South Lincoln FreeMan: https://www.facebook.com/pages/SouthLincolnFreeMan/347551775446030?fref=ts

There is nothing in the GRAMA documents to indicate that Ershadi replied in writing, or that other council members commented, but it did put the City of Moab on notice that something akin to a rebellion had occurred in Kemmerer,  and that Davidson had been at the very volatile center of it. By the time she left Wyoming to assume her Moab duties, Davidson had become one of the town’s most controversial citizens.

According to the Kemmerer Gazette,  Davidson moved to Kemmerer in early 2012, and worked early-on  to re-structure and streamline city government. She removed and replaced several longtime employees in the process.  Some accused her of favoritism. Public opinion about Davidson boiled over in a December 2012 council meeting, when Kemmerer’s mayor, Zem Hopkins, addressed concerns about the city manager. They were in reply to a letter to the editor from a former city council candidate, Connie McMillan, who “expressed concerns about current city administrator Rebecca Davidson, (and) voiced her continued concerns about the loss of a number of Kemmerer city employees since March of this year.”

But the city council stood by Davidson. The Gazette asked two council members, Kelly Blue and Jim Burnett, “about Davidson’s previous issues in Timnath prior to the August primary election. Both confirmed that the council was aware of Davidson’s employment history in Timnath and expressed their confidence in Davidson’s qualifications and abilities, as well as confirming their support for her in her current position.”

(This is essentially the same conclusion reached by Moab officials when they inquired about Davidson’s difficulties in Timnath, Colorado. And the same defensive position the Moab city council took on behalf of Davidson when she started dismissing employees.)

Finally, it was clear that Davidson believed a public meeting about her hiring practices was inappropriate and pointless to begin with. According to the Gazette, “Davidson (said)  that the city was restructuring. None of the city’s vacated positions have been discussed during council meetings, which according to Davidson is not an issue as those employees report directly to her, not the city council, and therefore the vacancies do not need to be addressed in council meeting.”

There is no “official count” of the number of employees who left the City of Kemmerer during Davidson’s tenure; as always “personnel matters” are exempt from public disclosure laws. And of those who left, it’s impossible to confirm how many left of their own free will, how many left under duress, how many left due to “re-structuring,” and how many were fired.

Critics of Davidson argue that more than 20 Kemmerer city employees left their jobs during her three years in Kemmerer, including its building inspector and parks maintenance director, its director of public works, the chief of police, the events center director, the parks and recreation director, the events center assistant, seven events center attendants, the custodian, the desk attendant at the recreation center, the seasonal and lead park techs, three employees of the streets department, the recreation center coordinator,  the police department secretary, and the IT contract employee. (NOTE: We asked Ms. Davidson to clarify the staff departures in our January 11 letter to the city manager, but she did not reply)

At least two of these employees also faced allegations of criminal misconduct by Davidson and were officially investigated by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).

Coming in Part 5: JENNIFER LASIK

Click Here to Read the Full Article!

This story first appeared in the February/March Issue of the Zephyr. We’re reprinting it here, in smaller sections, to make it easier for our readers to absorb the information.

NOTE:  In preparing this article about Moab’s city manager Rebecca Davidson, the Moab City Council’s actions re: Ms. Davidson and the subsequent “restructuring” of Moab government, The Zephyr sought information from a variety of sources. We filed Freedom of Information Act requests, via the Wyoming Sunshine Laws, with the City of Kemmerer, Wyoming and the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. We filed a Government Records Access request (GRAMA) with the City of Moab, and we conducted interviews with numerous people personally involved in the issues raised here. We also contacted reporter Trevor Hughes, now of USA Today, who wrote a comprehensive article about the current Moab City manager’s tenure as city manager in Timnath, Colorado.

On January 11, we sent 15 questions to city manager Rebecca Davidson, in an effort to “clarify and resolve” issues raised in this article. She did not respond (Those questions are available to the reader elsewhere in this issue). Finally, we contacted the Moab City Attorney, Christopher McAnany, to seek clarification on the process used to fulfill our GRAMA request with Moab City. His January 24 response, which he noted was, “in lieu of any further response from  Ms. Davidson,”  is included elsewhere in this issue, and excerpted later in this article. Finally, we offer the City of Moab the opportunity to reply. But please note that all correspondence with this publication will be regarded as ‘on the record.’…JS

WARNINGS AND ‘SURPRISES.’

There is no evidence to suggest that either Davey or Olsen knew they were about to be terminated suddenly, in a matter of minutes. First, both had enjoyed successful years and even decades-long careers with the City of Moab. Both were highly regarded by their peers and by their previous supervisor, City Manager Donna Metzler.

After Metzler retired and  the City Council selected Rebecca Davidson as its new administrator, there is no hard information to suggest they’d been warned of a sudden termination.

In fact, during the five months Davey worked with Davidson, he had very little direct contact with the city

City Manager Rebecca Davidson.

manager; Olsen, by an examination of emails at least, had none.

The results of a GRAMA request by The Zephyr revealed only two emails written by Davidson to Davey and they both occurred during the third week of June.

On June 15, Davey received this admonition by email from Davidson. She wrote:

“I have read over your work priorities this week. It doesn’t seem to add up to a full work load this week. Are there other items that you are working on? It is important to me that you are able to produce results each week.”

Davey replied at length.

“There are no current City documents that you don’t already have access to, regarding economic development status and work plan, as I pointed out to you when we briefly met in mid May (the last and only time we actually had a one to one meeting.) As you might recall from that meeting, I reported that I was hoping, with the hiring of Zacharia Levine, that the potential existed to create a City/County economic development strategy, but until now, I have not heard back from you about that. I am pleased that you agree we can and should move forward. I can, of course, provide you with a a plan of action for Economic Development by Thursday PM. We, meaning the City, cannot do it by ourselves, but we have really good partners, including Grand County, Workforce Services, USU (both through SBDC and the Moab Business Resource Center,) and, maybe most importantly, if we want it actually work, the Moab Chamber of Commerce. And the upcoming 24 hour tour by Lieutenant Governor Spencer Cox and leaders of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development gives us a great opportunity to focus in on what we think are the most important economic and social issues facing Moab.”

And to highlight the point that he was working ‘above and beyond,’ Davey noted parenthetically,  “(My big question: Since I am considering this well after working hours; does this qualify as comp time?)”

Davidson fired back, “I am seeking documents regarding Economic Development, status and work plan. I understand that SBDC is seeking a BEAR grant, but I am looking for what you are doing related to Economic Development. Please provide me with a plan of action for ED. Please be more specific and clear with this document. I would like it by Thursday PM. If you have questions, please let me know.”

According to Davey, he sent the “plan of action” to the city manager and made the Thursday deadline, but never heard back from Davidson regarding the plan. (and there was no record of a response in the GRAMA file) He continued to move forward with other projects and ideas.

But he’d been advised to hold off on affordable housing initiatives until the City talked with the school district about the possible donation of land to the City, in order to build housing for police officers and other city employees in need.

Davey.

During the previous winter and into the Spring of 2015, Davey and planning staff had invested many hours designing two new affordable housing ordinances that would increase density in exchange for contracts. The plan would hopefully improve the chances that housing would be more available to low and moderate income individuals and families. But the ordinances had been bottled up in “legal review” for months and months. And he’d been advised to hold off on affordable housing initiatives until the City talked with the local school district about the schools donating land to the City to build housing for police officers and other potential city employees.

And he had been told to hold off on helping a local developer create a downtown development plan to convert much of the property along Center Street and First West into small retail outlets. The idea was to create more affordable venues for local artisans and artists who otherwise were priced out of Main Street locations. Smaller boutique restaurants and outdoor cafes, small plazas, and even an outdoor amphitheater and performing stage were considered.

Davey may have wondered why he kept being put off, on projects like this. On September 23, it became a lot clearer.

Coming in Part 4: TIMNATH & KEMMERER FLASHBACKS

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