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Council declines to advance personnel-manual amendment that would shift appeal authority to COO
Summary
Councilmember Anderson proposed updating personnel rules to give the city's chief operating officer (COO) final authority for certain personnel appeal/termination procedures; council members declined to proceed after legal concerns and lack of majority support
Councilmember Anderson introduced a council policy proposal to amend the personnel manual and part of the Redmond Municipal Code to align procedures with the previously created Chief Operating Officer role.
The proposal, presented under Council Talk Time, sought to change language that refers to the mayor as the final administrative appeals authority to the COO for certain personnel actions confirmed by council, and to add related code updates (Councilmember Anderson noted RMC 2.0205 as an area for a separate code change). "The amendment is simple and just changes the mayor to COO instead," Anderson said, asking whether council wanted to move the idea to legal review and committee consideration.
Councilmembers raised process and timing concerns. Councilmember Stewart said he was not interested in pursuing personnel-manual updates this year given other council priorities. Council Vice President Forsyth asked for a brief staff review of current processes. City legal counsel and the mayor commented that state law and the city's strong-mayor form of government give the mayor authority over city staff; counsel advised that the mayor has authority over staff in the city's governance form. Councilmember Fields and others voiced interest in more information about checks and balances but also emphasized procedural concerns about the hopper process.
After discussion and a brief review of legal concerns, the council did not register majority interest to advance the proposal; President Kritzer concluded he would not proceed with legal review or committee referral without majority support. No ordinance or personnel-manual change was initiated at the study session.
Councilmembers suggested that if the item were to advance, it would require legal review and possible code amendments and that staff and council leadership could revisit it later if there is sufficient interest.
