Some not happy with newest city councilor
1 Comments Published by Pioneer Staff on Saturday, June 30, 2007 at 6:15 AM.
A 4-2 vote splits the city council as it adds Steve ClarkBy Joe Wilson
Molalla Pioneer
Molalla has a new city councilor, but not all the other councilors and the city administration are thrilled about some of his alleged behavior prior to getting the new position.
City Councilor Danna Jacober and Interim City Manager Mike Clarke are upset that the new city councilor, Steve Clark, asked city planning director Shane Potter, “Are you retarded?” via an email in January. They also said that a police officer had to ask Clark to leave city hall a couple of weeks ago after some city staffers said they felt threatened by him.
“It really puts the city staff on edge that there is a person on the city council who has been asked to leave city hall because he scared some of them,” Mike Clarke said.
Steve Clark denies the incident occurred.
“What? Under no circumstances did that ever happen,” he said.
As of press time, Molalla Police could not confirm that the incident occured.
In the Jan. 8 email to Potter, Clark expressed frustration because he thought Potter was not addressing his concerns about excessive dust blowing into Clark’s neighborhood from the nearby Buckeroo Rodeo grounds.
He wrote, “Are you retarded? Read your own message.”
“I was upset because he would not give me a straight answer. Every answer he gave me was false and untrue and I became frustrated,” Clark said. “The comment I made, not realizing it was public record, I regret.”
Email messages residing on city computers, in most cases, are open to the public like most other city correspondence.Steve Clark said he will not let this situation affect his future work with Potter. Clark said he will treat Potter with as much respect as he treats everyone else.
Councilor Jacober said that’s not the type of person she wants to have serving on the city council with her.
When asked about the email comment by Jacober at last Wednesday’s city council meeting, Clark admitted he said it but that it has been blown out of proportion.
City Council President Mary Jo Mackie said she doesn’t think the email comment will affect Clark’s ability to serve as a city councilor.
“It might, but I hope not,” she said. “I was told he had bad mouthed the planning director, but I don’t know anything else.”
“I think he’ll do fine once he sees how things go,” Mackie said.
Clark, beat out three other candidates for the seat when the council voted 4-2 on June 27 to appoint him to the seat vacated by James Leon Reed who resigned May 11. Reed quit after serving only 59 days. He cited job and family concerns.
Councilors Mackie, Glen Boreth, Deb Leighton and Jim Needham voted in favor of Clark. Councilor Jacober and Mayor Tom Potter voted against him.
This isn’t the first time that Clark applied for a city council position. He made an unsuccessful attempt when the council chose Reed earlier this year.
Interim City Manager Mike Clarke unsuccessfully applied for the permanent city manager position but the council instead decided to hire John Atkins, Jr. The 4-2 vote to hire Atkins was divided identically to the vote that appointed Clark to the councilor seat.
Atkins' first day is July 1.
Steve Clark said he wants to move beyond all this and get to work serving the citizens of Molalla. He said he supports the city growing, but that it should do so carefully.
“We need to keep Molalla’s small-town feel,” he said. “I know the city will grow and that’s good for me and it’s good for our home prices. I just think it should be controlled growth.”
He also said he wants to help find common ground between the business community and city hall.
He said his short-term goals include adopting a solid comprehensive plan and approving the upcoming parks and recreation plan later this year.
Molallans Noel Brown, Jason Burroughs and former city councilor Mitch Jorgensen were the other applicants for the open seat.
Last Wednesday evening in a vote spearheaded by Councilor Deb Leighton, the City Council in a 4-2 vote elected Steve Clark to fill the vacant council seat. Councilors Boreth, Leighton, Mackie, and Needham voted in favor of Steve Clark and Mayor Foster and my wife Councilor Danna Jacober voted against his nomination.
In a time when council members should be working to reduce the tension between them and city hall, they elect Steve Clark who has had run ins with city hall over the Molalla Buckaroo dumping dirt behind his house on Buckaroo property. He has admitted to calling one of the city hall employees a retard and had to be told to calm down by a police officer because he was not getting his way over the dirt issue. He has been told that due to his threatening behavior he is only to have contact with the City Manager at city hall. What does this tell you about the common sense of these elected officials who voted him in and their feelings and respect of city employees? What does this tell you about Steve Clark’s overall motivation to be on the city council?
This same evening my wife again tried to push through a set of council rules established by other city councils. Rules that would allow the Mayor to investigate and sanction council members for unacceptable behavior. Not surprisingly the other councilors felt they were too restrictive. What does that tell you about the intent of these councilors? It tells me that they want the power to be able to get away with anything including harassing city employees and running up unnecessary attorney fees and not have to face any repercussions.
It appears to me that Councilor Leighton is making a push to be Mayor and will do anything or walk over anybody to accomplish her goal. Because my wife refuses to be one of her puppets and not go with the flow that Councilor Leighton has established she is trying to push her out by leaving her out of important e-mails and other council business. She as even gone as far to send e-mails to my wife and Mayor Foster telling them that she will no longer communicate with either of them, but they could continue to send e-mails to her. Some may say this is politics but is not the type of politics that Molalla needs. It is time to question the ethics and motivation of this particular councilor and the ones that follow her.