Montpelier city councilors will not renew city manager Bill Fraser’s contract when it expires this spring.
The decision was made by Mayor John Hollar and half of the councilors in a closed council meeting Wednesday night.
Council members who supported Fraser and sought to renew his contract accused Hollar and other councilors of violating state open-meeting laws in discussions leading up to the decision.
No formal vote has been taken. Three council members and the mayor — together constituting a majority — arrived at the decision not to renew Fraser’s contract.
Hollar said conversations he had with council members prior to Wednesday’s meeting had been appropriate, lawful and unextraordinary.
“I did have conversations with other councilors” about Fraser’s contract, Hollar said. “That happens all the time with any city government. We have to talk to each other.”
Vermont open-meetings laws forbid a majority of members of governing bodies from jointly discussing any issue relating to their elected duties. Hollar said he had at no point engaged in conversations about Fraser’s contract with more than two councilors at one time.
Hollar said Fraser has not done anything that would lead to an immediate termination, “but the general view by the city council was that the city could benefit from new executive leadership.
“There were certainly issues relating to performance, but nothing that would suggest the basis for terminating him immediately,” Hollar said.
Fraser said the present city council has never conducted a review of his performance on the job, and said he remains uncertain of what led to the decision.
“The overwhelming message, my big take-away, was that they felt I’ve been here more than 22 years, and they felt it was time for a change — a need for new leadership, and a new set of eyes,” Fraser said. “They gave no indication to me that I’d done anything wrong or unethical or anything like that.”
Of the discussions outside official meetings that occurred leading up to the council’s decision, Fraser said only that they appeared “unusual.”
Councilmember Dona Bate who opposed the termination of Fraser’s contract said conversations prior to Wednesday’s meeting had been more than simply unusual.
“It’s against the law to do what they did,” Bate said.
“The process … was not a fair, due process,” Bate said. “Three council members and the mayor had discussions, conversations, outside the open meeting process, and made this decision, and then shared it with the rest of us after the fact.”
Bate learned of her peers’ intention to seek a new city manager on Monday, the same day Hollar informed Fraser.
Bate accused Hollar of orchestrating the decision. Hollar said he had brought concerns of his own to both council members and Fraser about a year ago, but said in recent months council members had approached him to express their own concerns.
“To be effective and successful, a city manager needs the support of the council, and the council needs full confidence in the city manager,” Hollar said. “It’s not tenable over time to have a city manager that doesn’t have the support of the council.
“I had concerns about Bill … [and Fraser] worked hard to make improvements,” Hollar said. “My concern now is that a significant majority of the city council has confidence in the city manager, and that’s not the case, and that’s why I supported this decision.”
Hollar and Bate differed in their evaluations of Fraser’s work.
“There wasn’t a specific performance review, but he certainly got a lot of feedback from the entire council about his performance,” Hollar said.
This feedback occurred, he said, at various times but particularly last spring when Fraser’s contract was extended through March 2017.
“There was certainly an evaluation, and an opportunity when we provided feedback in great deal about his performance,” Hollar said. “It wouldn’t be accurate to say he did not have notice of the concerns of a majority of the council.”
Bate said she hadn’t heard of specific complaints against Fraser, but said she had heard, since joining the council three years ago, calls for a new city manager.
“It isn’t that Bill’s done anything wrong — he’s very competent, very professional,” Bate said.
“I haven’t heard of any substantive performance issues,” she said.
The Times-Argus this summer reported on emails obtained through a public records request that suggested “a power struggle between the city’s paid administrator and its elected officials.”
Several city council members did not immediately return calls for comment.
Council member Justin Turcotte, who is among the three seeking Fraser’s ouster, said he did not wish to speak publicly about what had taken place.
