Bill Seward, who was fired as Haines Borough manager in an emotional assembly 4-2 vote last week, is pursuing legal action against the borough for wrongful termination.

A U.S. Coast Guard veteran with no municipal experience when he was hired in May, Seward on Tuesday hired Isaac Zorea, an Anchorage-based employment law attorney with 16 years’ experience.

“We’re still looking at the evidence. We’re going through (Seward’s) employment records to try and determine whether this action was related to protected activity,” Zorea said. “If this was a retaliation, if he was engaged in protected activity and got terminated for it, if that is the link, it was an illegal termination.”

Fallout from the firing this week includes community members reportedly circulating a recall petition targeting members of the borough assembly.

Members Tom Morphet, Margaret Friedenauer, Tresham Gregg and Ron Jackson voted to terminate Seward for cause. Mike Case and Heather Lende were opposed.

Seward said he was still reeling from the decision.

“It was a horrible experience; I was completely caught off guard,” he said. “Being boiled by a whole bunch of folks in public, it wouldn’t be a pleasurable experience for anybody. I had a flawless Coast Guard career and made the rank of commander after 28 years, so this was a pretty big blow.”

In an interview, Seward said that he filed a public records request for all emails sent between borough assembly members related to his job performance and firing.

According to an email sent to all borough assembly members, the request includes “all citizen or employee complaints received or sent by any member of the assembly.” Emails sent between assembly members may also fall under the purview of the records request, the email stated.

Prior to his evaluation, Seward had requested that his six-month evaluation be held in public, rather than in the privacy of executive session. “Good, bad or indifferent, I want the public to know,” he said at the time.

During the assembly’s discussion of Seward’s fate, the rancor was palpable as Mayor Jan Hill condemned the borough assembly as “axe-hurlers” who had just “jumped off the cliff.”

Following the vote, several members of the public in the audience directed their anger at Tom Morphet, the owner of the Chilkat Valley News, who introduced the motion to fire Seward.

Former assembly member Diana Lapham, whom Morphet defeated when he won his assembly seat in October, called him “despicable.”

Resident Don Turner Jr. threatened to circulate a recall petition the following morning.

Turner has since refused comment.

Lapham stressed that she is not organizing the recall but would sign the petition. She said it would not be appropriate for her to take an active role because she wanted to regain her seat on the assembly.

Nonetheless, she said the recall movement was going forward and other assembly members in addition to Morphet may be targeted.

She believed Morphet was the main target of the community’s ire.

Lapham said she didn’t think it would be a problem to collect the necessary signatures. “There are at least 250 people out there ready to sign a recall petition,” she said.

She added of Morphet: “He was the one who made the statements (against Seward). He was the perceived guiding force in this.”

Morphet opened the meeting by reading from a prepared, three-page statement which included 16 examples where he thought Seward lacked judgment or diligence necessary to do the job.

In July, soon after he started with the borough, Seward made an independent decision to divert funding from the Portage Cove harbor expansion project to the Lutak Dock project. That same month, Morphet said, Seward banned two residents from the borough offices before the assembly overruled his efforts to buttress security at the building.

In his statement, Morphet said Seward made “continuous missteps that reflect his judgment and diligence are not at the caliber required to do this job effectively,” adding, “This is not a job for on-the-job training.”

Lapham said Morphet’s aggressive pursuit of Seward was just “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“There’s more to it,” she said. “Tom, in particular, has been defiant, has refused to follow procedure and disagrees at just about every turn with how the borough does things. Every place has its procedures. You should at least learn them to become effective.”

“But Tom has refused to learn them. And that becomes incompetency,” Lapham said.

Morphet called her accusations baseless.

Under Alaska State Statute Section 29.26.240 on the recall of a public official, the law states that an elected official may be recalled by voters after serving 120 days. Grounds for recall include “misconduct in office, incompetence, or failure to perform prescribed duties.”

The section added that the petition must be signed “by a number of voters equal to 25 percent cast for that” officeholder to place the recall measure on the ballot.

In the October municipal election, Morphet received 436 votes, second only to Lende, the top vote-getter, meaning 109 signatures are required against Morphet to move the matter forward.

Tresham Gregg, who voted for Seward’s dismissal, was surprised to hear he may be targeted by a recall petition. “This is news to me,” he said. “I’d have to think about it before I made a comment.”

The vote to terminate Seward came at the end of an acrimonious four-hour meeting in which the assembly seesawed back and forth on two choices: relieve the borough manager immediately or place him on an additional and closely-watched three-month probationary period.

Friedenauer wondered whether Seward had received enough guidance from the assembly, especially since he had no municipal experience when he took the job six months before. “If things aren’t going as swimmingly as we hoped, I think we need to own that a little bit,” she said.

At that point, Morphet produced the job description for the borough manager.

“It’s right here,” he said, reading from the document. “The borough manager implements policy as set by the borough assembly.” The job description also used the phrases “carries out the directives” of the assembly and “prepares recommendations to the borough assembly on matters affecting the municipality” in describing the responsibilities of the position.

Morphet told Seward, “You manage this municipality; you don’t lead it.”

In an interview, Morphet defended his conduct during the debate over Seward’s job.

“When you’re hired to do a $100,000 job, the first thing you do is pick up your job description,” Morphet said. “I accept that I cast a very critical eye on Mr. Seward’s performance. I made specific examples of where I felt Mr. Seward fell short.”

He added, “But this man was being paid $100,000 in taxpayer money. I think he has to do more than just an acceptable job.”

Morphet said there was no allowance in either Seward’s contract or in borough code for individual assembly members to give feedback on the manager’s job performance.

“We can’t individually go down and tell the manager what to do – that has to be done collectively, as a group,” Morphet said. “I never took my concerns to him because I didn’t think it was my job. Likewise, he initiated no process to say, ‘How am I doing?’ The evaluation served as that process.”

At the meeting, assembly members discussed perceived problems with Seward’s management style. Both Friedenauer and Lende said they received unsolicited calls from borough staff complaining about issues that included lack of objectivity, disrespect and bias.

“It’s hard to un-hear those things,” Friedenauer said.

At the meeting, Seward told the assembly they were hearing only one side of the story and felt handcuffed that he could not respond to the allegations without compromising the employees involved.

“That put me at an unfair disadvantage,” he said in a subsequent interview.

Seward encouraged the board to consult with department directors to assess his performance. Borough clerk Julie Cozzi later wrote in an email that Seward made mistakes – as any new hire would do – but was responsive to feedback and correction.

“Bill Seward is an intelligent, even-keeled person who is fantastic with people and a great leader,” wrote Cozzi, who is now acting borough manager. “He made great progress in the very short time he was allowed to learn the job.”

Seward said in an interview he applied for the job as Haines manager knowing several managers had previously worked for the borough over the last dozen years.

“I thought with me understanding a small town and growing up in Alaska that I could relate better than those in the past. But I guess not,” he said. “My attorney said that something else is going on.”

The tenor of last week’s debate took an about-face after the assembly went into executive session to discuss alleged threats Seward made to the president of a company that employs Haines activist Gershon Cohen.

In the 45-minute executive session, in which Cohen was allowed to take part, the assembly heard evidence regarding a phone conversation in which Seward reportedly told David DelPorto, Cohen’s boss, that he would never receive work in Haines as long as Cohen was an employee of the engineering firm.

Just before the session, Ron Jackson, who had previously said he’d had only good experiences working with Seward, seemed to change his stance.

“This business about threatening a company owner – it’s not the person I’ve come to know,” Jackson said of Seward. “It just seemed like a totally different person.”

In his defense, Seward admitted he made mistakes, and that he tried to answer to the direction of an assembly that often had different visions.

“I’ll tell you; I’m less than perfect – I came in with little experience and I admitted that from day one,” he said. “Thirty-two folks applied for this position and I rose to the top; I must have done something right. I made mistakes and I’ll probably make more mistakes, but I take credit for it.”

Friedenauer pressed the borough manager for specific guidance he needed from the assembly and about his game plan going forward. Seward gave a rambling answer, inviting the assembly members to come into his office for a visit.

No one, including Friedenauer, seemed pleased with the answer.

“I wanted to be wooed with the question I asked you,” she told Seward. “I was ready to hear a plan. And I didn’t.”

The assembly based its final vote in part on a system devised by Mayor Hill, where each member gave a numerical score to facets of Seward’s performance: four categories that included interpersonal relationship, work habits, performance and supervisory skills.

Each section included rankings of 1 through 5, ranging from unacceptable to outstanding. In the final collective tally, Seward received a 2.35 score for interpersonal relationships; 2.9 for work habits; 1.6 for performance and a 2.2 for supervisory skills.

Seward’s score for overall effectiveness was 2.3 out of a total of 5.

It was not clear this week whether Hill took part in the numerical ranking.

Even before the vote took place, Lende said she thought the review process was too general and thought it should be recast to be based specifically on Seward’s job description.

Her request was turned down by both Hill and Seward, she said.

“I thought what we had was extremely general and that was a mistake,” she said. “I think it might have helped him if we’d had a more thorough evaluation process.”

Hill did not return repeated calls for comment.

Prior to making a final statement, Seward left the meeting room on an announced five-minute break. He returned after that time to motion Hill into the hallway.

“I just wanted to make sure she was OK,” Seward said in the interview. “I could see she was starting to tear up.”

Outside, in private, Seward said Hill told him, “It was terrible what they were doing to me. She couldn’t believe it was happening.”

Hill then returned to the meeting and chastised the assembly. “Our job is to help our manager succeed but we have just jumped off the cliff in my opinion,” Hill said, her voice breaking. “It feels like you’re all axe-hurlers and I’m really sad.”

That outburst against assembly members brought criticism from former three-term Haines Mayor Fred Shields.

“Attacking people who have had the courage and concern to come forward and serve the community is the best way to discourage public involvement in civic affairs,” he said. “It sends a clear message: participate at your peril. If the powers-that-be don’t like you or your point of view, be prepared to be publicly berated.”

Seward said he received much support in the community following his dismissal.

“It’s overwhelming,” he said. “A dozen people dropped by over the weekend with food. One even snowplowed our driveway for free. Facebook is exploding with support.”

On Wednesday, he stopped by borough offices to pick up his final paycheck. “The support there is incredible,” he said. “I hope Haines finds its way.”

On Tuesday, Lapham started a “Hold Borough Assembly Accountable” GoFundMe drive which she shared on her Facebook page, with a goal of raising $35,000 to help defray Seward’s legal costs and for personal living expenses caused by the job loss.

By Wednesday evening, the site had raised $2,600 from 11 contributors, including $1,000 from the wife of Haines Police Chief Heath Scott.

“Bill and his family are suffering, not only financially but also emotionally, as they cope with this significant life event. Bill is now left out of a job and struggling to support his family as he will likely be considered unemployable due to the damages to his reputation,” Lapham wrote.

“As we all know, bills add up and most public servants live paycheck to paycheck; especially when they have children in college. I ask that you donate to this cause to allow Bill Seward and his family to get by while he works his way through the legal process,” Lapham said.

Lapham also lashed out at borough assembly members this week in a series of pointed emails.

“I hope you are all proud of your actions. I hope you are proud of the fact that you are so cold blooded,” she wrote on Tuesday, following other emails sent over the weekend.

“What you have done is despicable. If we go into a lawsuit over this, I hold EACH and every one of you personally responsible. I begin to feel you have no conscience but in the outside chance that you do, I hope it’s eating you alive.”

The borough assembly is scheduled to meet next on Jan. 10.

This week, Cozzi sent an email to borough assembly members recommending that Borough Facilities Director Brad Ryan serve as interim manager until a replacement can be found for Seward.

The email said Ryan has agreed to take on the position.

The borough also received an offer from former Juneau borough manager Dave Palmer to serve as interim manager.

Palmer, 67, who is now retired and lives in Anacortes, Wash., has also served as city administrator in Craig and city manager in Petersburg.

In an interview, Palmer said he has property near Chilkat Lake and knows Haines. “It’s a good place; I like it,” he said.

“I haven’t heard back from the borough yet. I hope they can get together and come up with a plan and direction.”

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