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Gold Hill city recorder resigns Thursday Jan 12, 2017 at 4:33 PM Jan 12, 2017 at 5:41 PM Buffy Pollock for the Mail Tribune Gold Hill City Council met in a special emergency session Wednesday to review and accept the resignation of longtime City Recorder Mary Goddard. Goddard's resignation, following months of water emergencies and shutoffs, lack of steady law enforcement for the town and, last year, numerous closed meetings over personnel issues centering on Goddard and former City Manager Rick Hohnbaum, left councilors this week grappling to figure out how they'll keep the doors of City Hall open. Goddard, who declined to comment to the Mail Tribune, did not attend Wednesday's special session, but Mayor Chris Stanley reported that Goddard had agreed to work until Friday, Jan. 20, in order to help recruit and train her replacement. Goddard resigned Monday during a City Council session. She took attendance at the meeting, declared a quorum, then called roll call for approval of meeting items. She then produced a note, took her supplies to Stanley and declared, "I think I'm going to be leaving at this point." "This is my letter of resignation. I'm giving you a two-week notice," Goddard told the council. "You can accept it, or if you'd like me to leave earlier that's fine. You're all my supervisors, so you all have a copy of it." An employee for more than a dozen years, Goddard acted as city recorder, elections officer, grant writer and finance director and performed tasks ranging from billing and planning to janitorial and community outreach, including passing out bottled water during recent water outages. Goddard last year accused Hohnbaum of ongoing harassment and, later, complained of failure of city officials to prevent ongoing retaliation by the former city manager. Hohnbaum was given his walking papers in June when the council voted not to renew his contract, which expired in October, though he was asked to leave immediately. The subject of two state Bureau of Labor and Industries investigations, as well as an Oregon Government Ethics Commission complaint, Hohnbaum cost the city an estimated $80,000 in legal fees last year. BOLI investigators found "substantial evidence" to support allegations that Hohnbaum had retaliated against Goddard. With Hohnbaum gone, city officials declined to speculate on the reason for Goddard's sudden departure. Councilor Deb West said she was saddened by Goddard's resignation. She and Stanley will serve as the city's personnel committee to seek a replacement, but West said she hoped Goddard would consider coming back. Council President Donna Silva acknowledged it was difficult for Goddard to take sick or personal time because she was often the only employee at City Hall. Following Goddard's resignation, Silva made a motion for a 5 percent differential, paid retroactively to November, for increase in duties beyond city recorder duties. "Even when you accrue sick time or vacation time, when you're the only one in the office, you can't really take it," Silva said. "So I was going to suggest we hire a 19-hour-a-week person, so if the person wanted to take the time due off, they could do that." Councilor Zachariah Dell called the council's approval of the additional pay, and consideration of additional help at City Hall, "more of that too little, too late," noting "the city lost a gold standard of an employee." Stanley said the city would post Goddard's position immediately in hopes of maintaining operating hours at City Hall and pursuing "a professional standard of government" going forward. — Reach freelance writer Buffy Pollock at [email protected].