St. Helens council discusses aligning governing policy with council–manager norms, adds focus on annual reviews and HR capacity

City of St. Helens officials met in a special council work session on March 17, 2025, to review recommended revisions to the city’s governing policy that would align local practice with the council–manager form of government and add clearer expectations for hiring, terminations and performance evaluations.

Policy attorney Ashley Ivans, representing the presenting legal team, told the council that “The City of St. Helens has a governing policy and that has been adopted,” and described the proposal as bringing the policy into closer alignment with what the League of Oregon Cities commonly sees in municipalities of similar size.

The draft changes put forward by staff and the city’s outside labor counsel would shift day-to-day operational authority toward the city administrator while preserving council oversight on who ultimately serves as city administrator. Under the recommended approach, the city administrator would select department heads and oversee hiring and discipline for department employees; department heads would supervise and evaluate their staff; and the city council would retain formal authority over the city administrator, including annual evaluation and any termination of that office.

Council members broadly backed keeping council involvement in defining evaluation criteria and retaining an ability to confirm high-level appointments, while reducing council participation in individual hiring, discipline and termination decisions to minimize legal risk and avoid entangling councilors in employment disputes.

On performance evaluations, councilors and staff discussed adopting annual reviews across the organization. Ivans said annual reviews were common and recommended as a best practice, and John, the city administrator, urged the council to use established templates and industry guidance when designing the process. “ICMA has a whole place on how to review the city manager,” John said, noting he keeps sample job descriptions and evaluation forms for reference.

Council members weighed how much procedural detail to include in the governing policy versus keeping the policy at a high level and allowing personnel policy, resolutions or separate procedures to specify methods such as 360-degree reviews. Several councilors said they supported 360-style input from employees and supervisors as part of evaluations, while Tamara Russell, deputy general counsel for CIS, was reported by staff as advising against anonymous surveys and recommending that responses be routed through counsel for redaction and summary so issues can be addressed without exposing raw identify-linked responses.

The conversation also identified a gap in human-resources capacity. Staff and council discussed options ranging from contracting with an HR firm to hiring a part-time or full-time HR/risk manager. Council members said existing staff such as Kathy currently perform many HR duties but that a dedicated HR resource would improve consistency, reduce legal risk and take administrative burden off the city administrator and department heads.

Next steps the council discussed included: harmonizing recommendations from the city’s outside labor counsel with the staff proposal; asking staff to draft a revised governing-policy resolution for future council action; scheduling the CIS training on conducting effective performance evaluations (Tamara Russell); and directing the city administrator to gather options and cost estimates for HR services or positions to present during the budget cycle. No formal vote or resolution was adopted at the session.

Implementation details — including the final decision on whether department-head selections will require council confirmation, the precise format of performance evaluations and any employment contracts for the city administrator or department heads — were left for staff to refine and return to council for approval.