For the week of September 4 - 10, 2002

$65,000 settles Ketchum police dispute

McNeil named assistant police chief

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"We didn’t want the controversy. We want to run this city efficiently. We thought, ‘Let’s clear it up as quickly as we can.’"

— BAIRD GOURLAY, Ketchum city councilman

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

The Ketchum City Council cleaned up a summer-long personnel mess last week in three tidy decisions, including one that costs the city and its insurance company $65,000.

The decisions were a loss for Mayor Ed Simon, whose assistant police chief appointment, Ron Taylor, went back to work at the Blaine County Sheriff’s Office in mid-August. Last week, Taylor also walked away with a $65,000 settlement from the city.

McNeil

The decisions were a win for Ketchum Police Chief Cal Nevland and former Police Lt. Mike McNeil, who’s the city’s new assistant police chief. Neveland and McNeil had filed a lawsuit against the city and its mayor when Nevland’s decision to promote McNeil to assistant chief was usurped by the mayor’s decision to hire Taylor early in June.

Following a brief executive session Aug. 29—at least the eighth executive session officials held on the topic—the city council unanimously authorized the city’s participation in two settlements, one with Nevland and McNeil and the second with Taylor.

Councilwoman Chris Potters was absent from the meeting, and Councilman Baird Gourlay abstained from a third, confidential decision pertaining to McNeil’s personnel records and a grievance he filed with the city.

The settlement with McNeil and Nevland assures McNeil’s promotion to the position of assistant police chief, a $54,000-per-year post. It also assures that Nevland and McNeil will withdraw a lawsuit they filed against the city and its mayor in 5^th District Court in Hailey. The lawsuit sought clarification over who has hire-and-fire authority over the assistant police chief position.

The $65,000 Taylor procured in damages was for "pain and suffering and mental anguish," according to the signed agreement. The city is splitting the cost of the settlement with its insurance company, Idaho Counties Risk Management Program.

The settlement is in addition to $1,464.96 that Taylor grossed while on the city’s payroll for seven days in early August, a period during which he did not work because of a court order preventing his active employment until the lawsuit was resolved.

In the settlement, the city also agreed to pay Taylor’s legal expenses.

The seemingly large settlement figure represents the difference between Taylor’s Sheriff’s Office salary and his Ketchum Police Department salary over six years—the time he had committed to working for the city during interviews—and an allowance for being inconvenienced, Taylor’s attorney, Brian Elkins, said.

Two out of four city council members and the mayor corroborated Elkins’ explanation.

"I felt like we put Ron (Taylor) in a bad situation," Councilman Baird Gourlay said. "You hire a guy, and two weeks after he’s supposed to show up for duty, you ask him to leave. So he suffers.

"You also look at what it could do for his future. You have to look at the difference in the wages he was going to make in that period of time."

Gourlay said the council’s willingness to fight the lawsuit and grievance appeared to waffle following a grievance hearing Aug. 5. Gourlay did not attend that meeting but said he was later brought up to speed.

"My belief is that, after the grievance hearing, it became apparent that the city attorney and the city council, they felt the mayor’s case wasn’t as strong, because of ambiguities in the handbook," Gourlay said.

In a contest seeking who had authority to hire an assistant police chief, it may not have helped Simon’s case when, at the grievance hearing, attorneys produced an employee evaluation of Nevland, signed by Simon, that said the police chief did a "good" job hiring and managing personnel. The evaluation also said Nevland exceeds expectations marks for staff supervision and hiring.

"You continue to use your existing staff wisely…You have done a good job in recruiting new people," read the evaluation.

In the review, signed in March and released to the Mountain Express by Nevland this week, the chief also wrote that one of his short-term goals was to "promote from within to fill Asst. Police Chief position."

"It had impact," Council President Randy Hall said, answering a question about the evaluation’s effect. "When Cal’s evaluation surfaced during McNeil’s grievance hearing, the council unanimously went from a litigation posture to a mitigation posture. Cal’s evaluation had two exceeds expectations and clearly states Cal’s intention to hire an assistant police chief from within his department."

But despite the struggle to determine who had authority to hire an assistant police chief, Simon, like Nevland, maintained that his man was right for the job.

"I think Ron Taylor is a man of the highest character and integrity, and I find no fault with any of his actions," Simon said. "Ron Taylor would have taken the Ketchum Police Department in a new direction, which is sorely needed."

Simon said that the Ketchum Police Department has many high quality employees but needs "new leadership, new attitudes and new direction."

"I’m not happy with the image it’s presenting. I want more and better public relations and more involvement with the community," he said.

But the fight was beginning to become drawn out, and the city council eventually stepped in to clean up the city’s image.

"We didn’t want the controversy. We want to run this city efficiently," Gourlay said. "We thought, ‘Let’s clear it up as quickly as we can.’"

To help clean up the mess and prevent future disputes along the same vein, the city council said it will revise the city’s personnel handbook; develop new hiring, performance and promotion standards; and explore the possibility for accreditation of Ketchum Police Department by the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies.

"What we’ve got is an employee handbook that was authored in 1992. Here we are almost 10 years later with an outdated document," Councilman Maurice Charlat said. "It doesn’t envision some of the problems we may face and some of the problems we just did face.

"Out of this will be a review of hiring and performance standards in the police department. From that perspective, it will be beneficial for everybody."

The assistant police chief debate bore similarities to a 1992 dispute that resulted in then-councilman Simon and two other council members being recalled after trying to fire Nevland.

While Nevland contended that Simon’s decisions this summer stemmed from the 1992 controversy, Simon maintained that his decisions had "nothing to do with ’92."

For his part, Nevland said his actions were fueled only by a motivation to retire from a top-notch, well-managed police department.

"I am retiring in the very near future, and I want to leave this police department in good shape," said the 22-year chief. "This was not a power play on my part. It was entirely doing what I felt very strongly about what is in the best interests of the department and the community.

"This way, I have done what I can do."

 

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