A consulting firm that conducted a six-month performance evaluation for Burien City Manager Adolfo Bailon terminated its contract with the city in late December, telling city officials that continuing the contract would be “more detrimental than beneficial” to their reputation.
“We have observed that the initial evaluation conducted for the City Manager was not met with the seriousness it deserved by several key stakeholders, and unfortunately, we have concerns that constructive action was not taken in response to the feedback presented in the evaluation report,” the contractor, Ethan Nash of Nash Consulting, told Burien’s senior human resources manager, Connie Roberts, in an email. The city has not released the full evaluation, which was reportedly critical of Bailon’s performance.
A majority of the Burien council supported Bailon over the last year as he shot down efforts to stand up a homeless shelter on land owned by the city, threatened legal action against a church that hosted homeless people on its property, and signed a no-bid contract for encampment removals with a controversial group that has no demonstrated track record or previous government contracts. Over the last year, Bailon also declined to share information about potential shelter solutions with the council and waited several days to share a time-sensitive email about a $1 million shelter offer from King County, leading some on the council to conclude he was withholding information deliberately.
Earlier this year, Burien resident Charles Schaefer—the former Burien Planning Commission chair the council removed from his position because he informed a group of displaced encampment residents about their legal right to sleep on city-owned property—requested all records summarizing the evaluation along with “council and staff feedback” on the evaluation. (After the city council ousted Schaefer, the entire Planning Commission resigned in protest).
In response to Schaefer’s request, the city provided a two-page summary written in August by then-mayor Sofia Aragon, which characterized Bailon’s performance as “mainly on track” and laid out six bullet-pointed goals. These included “institute quarterly Coffee with the City Manager meetings with various themes,” “present a realistic timeline for fiscal cliff measures, with staff input,” and two items related to “crisis communications.” The letter also says the city supports Bailon seeking a voluntary accreditation with the International City/County Management Association “to strengthen your skills in this role.”
In lieu of the council and staff feedback he requested, Schaefer received a list of exemptions to the state public disclosure act that, the city argued, rendered Bailon’s entire performance evaluation, including redacted or anonymized feedback from staff, categorically exempt from disclosure.
A state appeals court ruling found that a city manager’s position, specifically, is “not like that of other public employees” because the city manager functions as “the city’s chief executive officer, its leader, and a public figure.” In that case, the state appeals court found that the performance evaluation “was not exempt because it was of legitimate concern to the public.”
The exemptions the city claimed fell into two broad categories. First, the city said that every aspect of the evaluation itself was confidential and conducted in closed executive sessions, making any staff feedback, along with an evaluation worksheet exempt from disclosure. Second, the city claimed that disclosing any information about the evaluation would be “highly offensive” and an invasion of Bailon’s privacy, citing a 1993 case involving a school principal, in which a state appeals court ruled that performance evaluations are exempt from disclosure as long as they don’t include “specific instances of misconduct or public job performance.”
However, a subsequent court ruling involving a performance evaluation for the Spokane City Manager found that a city manager’s position, specifically, is “not like that of other public employees” because the city manager functions as “the city’s chief executive officer, its leader, and a public figure.” In that case, the state appeals court found that the performance evaluation “was not exempt because it was of legitimate concern to the public.”
In his letter ending the contract, Nash refers to a “recent Public Records Request” whose handling “raised concerns regarding our ability to guarantee the confidentiality of interviewees and survey participants. This situation has likely undermined the trust placed in our firm by those participating in the evaluation, thereby compromising the effectiveness of any future evaluations we might conduct.”
It’s unclear what records request Nash was referring to (including whether it was Schaefer’s); neither Nash nor a spokesperson for the city of Burien had responded to questions before this story posted. We’ve asked the city for more information about what “constructive action” the consultants recommended and will update this post if we hear back.
PubliCola has also requested a copy of Bailon’s full performance evaluation. Bailon’s initial base salary, according to the B-Town Blog, was $215,000. Previously, he was the town manager for Randolph, Vermont, a sleepy town that disbanded its police force in 2018. Prior to joining the city of Burien in 2022, he was up for similar positions in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Nogales, Arizona, where the city council decided not to hire him in November 2021.