The Saxman City Council voted to end city clerk and administrator Lori Richmond’s employment during a meeting on Tuesday.
The meeting agenda referred to the topic as a “personnel concern,” and Saxman’s deputy clerk, Brianna Berg, said that no other information about what led to Richmond’s firing will be shared.
Richmond wrote a memo, which she gave to the council during the meeting. In the memo, Richmond stated that “the mayor doesn’t feel he can trust” her.
She accused the City of Saxman of being inconsistent, by allegedly telling her she isn’t trusted, but continuing to assign her responsibilities. The memo also says there have been no complaints about her ethics or character. Richmond also listed her job responsibilities, which also include overseeing the water treatment plant.
“There are a hundred thousand little things I know and do that won’t seem important in the moment, but will eventually need to be recalled or known,” she wrote. “These are the things that actually make the City successful.”
Meeting minutes show that Richmond herself made suggestions to the council of what to do instead of terminating her. She suggested docking her pay, suspending her without pay for a week, or putting her on probation.
All but one councilmember, Rick Makua, voted to fire Richmond at the end of the hour-long meeting. He advocated for one of the suggestions that Richmond made, such as a probation period or a pay decrease.
Berg said that Richmond’s termination became effective following the meeting.
Now, Berg isn’t quite sure what will become of the position.
“Right now, we’re just gonna delegate the tasks between the deputy clerk, which is me, finance clerk, and the mayor’s gonna fill in as needed for the administrator, and then we’re gonna meet with the Council, eventually. And see what we want to do — if we want to hire soon, or we might even split up the jobs of the administrator, and the clerk, as separate instead of as one.”
Richmond had worked as the clerk and administrator for four years.
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