Yakima speaking in codes with city manager pick

YAKIMA - The Yakima City Council will vote Tuesday on finalists for the city manager position, but the public won’t know their identities.

Under state law, the selections must be made in public, but the council is expected to used coded language to refer to the eight semi-finalists chosen by an executive search firm.

Interim City Manager Jeff Cutter, who is also the city attorney, says there are legally accepted methods for voting in public without releasing candidate names, but others say it may skirt the state’s Open Public Meetings Act.

“All that’s required during a vote is that the vote of each member be recorded and attributed to that member,” Cutter said. “I know of no requirement that says if you’re talking about an individual you have to disclose their name.”

State law only stipulates that decisions must happen in public when an elected governing body is considering job candidates, but doesn’t mention methods that may be used such as referring to them in coded language.

The city will only release the names of the finalists chosen once they have been contacted, said City Hall spokesman Randy Beehler, adding that in previous city manager searches, the council has referred to candidates by assigned numbers to keep names confidential.

“There is no Open Public Meetings Act appellate decision on point that addresses using assigned numbers or characters,” Nancy Krier, state assistant attorney general for open government, said in an email.

But Michele Earl-Hubbard, a Seattle attorney with the Allied Law Group specializing in open government and who has represented the Yakima Herald-Republic in public records cases, said the process may violate the law.

“You have to make decisions in an open meeting, so that implies you can’t hide things. It has to be a full and complete discussion the public has to witness,” Earl-Hubbard said. “By talking in code, you’re hiding that.”

The council is yet to decide exactly how the discussion would be held.

Similar methods have been used by other publicly funded institutions. Washington State University regents voted for a new university president in March at a public meeting using letters to identify candidates.

Cutter said the process protects the confidentiality of job candidates who don’t get chosen. He also said the city promised them confidentiality and that “they are entitled to it.”

Asked if the law requires that city manager candidates receive confidentiality, Cutter said: “I don’t know.”

Earl-Hubbard said governments aren’t authorized to make such promises, because there is no reasonable expectation of confidentiality when applying for public jobs chosen by an elected governing body.

“They don’t want their current employers to know they were looking for work, but it’s different when you’re applying for a position that requires a vote by a public body,” she said. “Those kinds of arguments are made all the time and yet they still have to follow the law.”

The city has been without a permanent city manager since Dec. 1, Tony O’Rourke’s last day in office after he resigned.

The Yakima City Council meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall in the council chambers.