Adcock fired

City administrator terminated Wednesday night

  • By: John Baker  
  • Published: 8/27/2009 9:55:14 AM
  • Last Updated: 8/27/2009 1:11:33 PM
Mark Adcock
Canby City Administrator Mark Adcock was fired by the Canby City Council Wednesday night.

Adcock, the subject of a performance review special session earlier in the evening, was informed by Councilor Robert Bitter that the city council was terminating him moments after a special city council meeting was gaveled into session Wednesday.

Bitter explained that Adcock’s termination was due to his failure to make satisfactory progress under the terms of a work improvement plan that was laid out by the council, city attorney and mayor 60 days ago.
Bitter also cited a loss of trust and confidence in Adcock’s ability to affectively manage the city’s business.

“We explained to Adcock again in the puGot a News Tip?blic meeting the reasons for firing him and Robert read the statement,” said Councilor Jason Padden. “He seemed pretty surprised by the council’s decision. Then I went with Adcock and Amanda Klock, the human resources director, to Adcock’s office and collected the city property.

“We wished him luck and escorted him to the door,” Padden added.

Padden said the city property gathered from Adcock included keys to buildings, cell phone and related items.

“Essentially, the city council cited a loss of trust and confidence in his ability to affectively manage the city’s business,” said Mayor Melody Thompson. “Over his tenure, he’s done some fine things for the city. At this time, the city needs to move forward and this is the right decision for the city.”

Amanda Klock will serve as the interim city administrator and work with City Attorney John Kelley and City Recorder Kim Scheafer in managing the city’s affairs.

Kelley was to the point about the night’s events, “We have no comment about anything.”

Thompson said that the council will consider a recruitment strategy for a replacement during its Sept. 2 regular meeting.

“There were some developments in the last few days, interactions that he had that came to our attention that required this action,” Thompson said. “It illustrated for the council that he was not satisfactorily complying with the work plan. So they took action.”

Councilor Bitter confirmed there was an incident.

“Specific behavior and language was used with a city employee and he (Adcock) did seem surprised and denied the allegation,” said Bitter. “That was mentioned to him that his unprofessional behavior with this employee was an event that helped move us toward this decision.

“It has been a long process and we are pleased we are past it now and feel bad it happened, but are ready to move forward,” Bitter added.

“Personally, I think this is going to provide us with a good launching pad to regain citizens’ trust in city government,” Padden said. “This has been a controversial thing. We are moving forward at making Canby that much stronger a city.”
 

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L.L. from Canby
8/27/2009 6:10:53 PM

It's about time. Good employees have left because of him.
 
R.H. from Canby
8/27/2009 7:36:00 PM

This is really too bad. It isn't bad enough that we have a corrupt police department, now I have no confidence in the mayor or council to get anything right.



 
S.T. from Canby
8/27/2009 10:10:39 PM

Interesting R.H. that on the one hand you would criticize the PD and on the other say that the supervisor of the city and PD (read the investigation - it will enlighten you) is not an issue. The outcry to hold the administrator responsible has been considerable. I would guess you either a) got a ticket recently or b) haven't read some of the in depth info provided by this paper.
 
R.M. from canby
8/28/2009 10:09:22 AM

Now that Adcock is gone we can now look at having a system where the Mayor runs the city and can be held accountable every four years to the citizens of Canby. Since Adcock was accountable to know one and it has taken so long to finally fire him. This would also save the city money as we the voters would have a say in the salary of the mayor.



 
R.H. from Canby
8/28/2009 1:29:48 PM

Responding to S.T., (a) I actually have never received a ticket and (b) I read everything I could find on the police scandal. Apparently we draw different conclusions from the same information. It would take several pages to explain my points. I'll save it for my memoirs. Thanks for your comment.
 
S.T. from Canby
8/28/2009 7:39:13 PM

Classy response R.H. I think we would have a good discussion. Thanks for your polite response, and will stay tuned for more discourse.
 
T.A. from Canby
8/30/2009 10:07:21 AM

Mr. Adcock's contract has different people on the city council trying to change it for the past six to seven years. While it's sad it took so many negative things to finally get out of the contract, I think the city will be much better for it. My feeling has always been that behind the scenes, Mr. Adcock was a good administrator, from what I have heard. Not exactly a great people person, but we all have our strengths and weaknesses. I hope the next person they hire will be a better fit for Canby and the community. We need to get to a point of moving past the recent controversies and focusing on fixing our local economy and police department. Whether this council is up to the task has yet to be seen. I see this as a good first step.




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