Oct. 9 was the last day of work for Palmer City Manager Stephen Jellie, who lasted just seven weeks. His resignation came at the end of a hastily called emergency meeting of the Palmer City Council, much of which was an executive session. His resignation was accepted unanimously.
Workers in the city, including the city attorney, had lodged numerous complaints about Jellie, who had alarmed the community and particularly the public safety community of police, dispatchers, and fire and rescue, when he suspended the police chief and demanded he turn in his badge.
The council heard from at least a dozen people in the community who shared their experiences and points of view about Jellie. The council chambers was standing-room only.
One man spoke, thanking the council for taking the matter seriously and “making it right,” something not always seen in government. Then he asked, “Can we have our chief back?”
Chief Dwayne Shelton had been with the force for 27 years. Mayor Steve Carrington responded that that item was not on the agenda of the emergency meeting.
Watch the public comment section of the meeting below:
Jellie will get six months severance pay, which was part of his contract when he was hired in August.
He had had a similar experience when he was the fire chief of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as described in this news report from January.
“Eighty pages of newly released public comment allege that under the leadership of embattled Fire Chief Stephen Jellie, firefighters have been denied important training opportunities, rescue trucks have been sold to community detriment, and long-distance hospital transfers have been dangerously dialed back,” the news article states from January.
It is a bit hard to identify the villain(s) here. It might be that the new guy made a lot of enemies by saying “no”. Or he may be a turkey. I worked in municipal government for several years and in some comparable organizations. I have been amazed and bewildered to see leaders act arbitrarily and without knowledge. They just do it based on their power and position. Some are simply gangsters.
Experience reflects that some move to Alaska to put distance between themselves and a bad record. Lots of these folks come from the East. Prediction: The next city manager will be an internal or quasi-internal candidate.
Bit hard? The simplest search pulled information about this guys bullshit he’s pulled in the past. The mayor and whichever council members who hired this guy need to be recalled or resign immediately.
This isn’t just some random oopsie faluire.
It almost sounds like he does this on purpose so he can cut and run with the severance package.
That was exactly what came to my mind. Sounds like he has a good gig going. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Yep, if not before this, he does now. It seems he didn’t invest in buying a house…so that suggests he expected or planned this.
I’m guessing he can do this maybe one more time. Then, he’ll support the right person(s) and find a lucrative political appointment or find a publicly funded do-nothing “NGO” job.
One has to wonder. He was employed for 7 weeks and got paid @ $75K. But he exemplifies the leadership crisis we find ourselves in worldwide, from the Pope to the POTUS. Society itself is a growing mental crisis, and I guess we can’t expect much better of our leaders. Perhaps those who can lead are too wise to take it on, so we end up with clowns like this guy? I still wonder who hired this guy, what with his NY and Wyoming resumes. What was the city leadership (mayor and/or council) thinking? Did they/someone bring this guy in on purpose?
All good questions.
He seems to be disliked everywhere he goes.
At what point does one ask themselves “Am I the problem, and not everyone I work for”?
Knew a fellow well that frequently moved and everyone everywhere intensely disliked him.
He complained to me about those “everyone everywhere” folks.
I replied, “what’s the common denominator? Everywhere you go, people that never met each other don’t care for you.” Then I paused, then said “wherever you go, there you are.”
Jellie is just one of those folks, will never look for or find fault with himself.
Of course he’ll land on his feet. He’s articulate and small towns are filled with small-time politicians willing to be fooled.
Eventually, with a growing resume of disaster like the one he’s building, he’ll run out of public service opportunities………unless he ends up as a dog catcher in Newark, NJ.
Six months of severance pay?
Wow when will the next traveling gypsy salesman push snake oil down the throats of naive council members at the taxpayers expense?
Maybe someone could sell them a mountain of snow that will never melt this winter for year round recreation?
Liberals are incompetent and cannot and must not govern. What does it take to understand this? 🤔
Boy howdy do you love to paint with a broad brush.
I wish “liberals” were chronically inept and generally incompetent. However, that so many liberals (what Exactly is a liberal, btw?) win elections and re-election shows that at least as far as politics is concerned, liberals are highly competent.
No, no they are not, here is a short list of them:
Biden, Harris, the view women, newsom, seattle, oregon, CALIFORNIA!
“………what Exactly is a liberal, btw?……..’
Anybody a right winger doesn’t like.
I especially liked the testimony from the one affected municipal employee that reminded the council that 5 months ago he did a google search on the fired manager and couldn’t believe he made it into the third round of interviews for the job that he thought there were many Alaskan in the room qualified for but somehow the council thought an “outsider” would be more appropriate fit for the all important job of city manager.
That seems to be the method Los Anchorage voters use to select southern Californians and New Yorkers for the fine Anchorage ASSembly who is running the muni like an extremely unsuccessful homeless encampment.
Maybe someone should clue them in on the benefits of google….
“……..the council thought an “outsider” would be more appropriate fit…….”
Was there a public vote by the council on this guy? If not, why not? If so, who voted yea, and who nay?
Yes, he got $75,000 buy out after 53 days. Evidently, he has ripped off communities all over the Lower 48 and Palmer was dumb enough to help him continue his con. Looks like purposeful alienation with the goal of a payout. He needs to be reined in by a States’ Class Action Lawsuit by all affected nationwide communities.
Bye-bye Jellie. It’s bean a displeasure.
I love the way Palmer takes care of business and gets rid of problems right away! I think Anchorage could learn something from them.
They brought a well-known problem to Palmer from the Lower 48. Then they bought off their problem with $75,000 of Taxpayers” money. I hope Palmer learned something……
The bigger question is how this guy got hired in the 1st place. I’d recommend eyeballing the vetting process by our city elected management.
Need to take a hard look at the clowns who thought he was a good hire.
Why is it that nobody seems to think it odd that he got hired in the first place? I tend to think that the Council and the mayor are completely at fault here since after all, they did do the due diligence before they hired this guy. Didn’t they?
They could have and should have terminated him for cause and saved the $75,000.
Well.. If you look at Jellie, he’s a professional seagull manager. He gets hired, he poops on everything, then flies away with 6 months of severance. So.. Doing a crappy job rewarded Jellie with 6 months worth of wages. What a deal! /s
On the flip side, I think Palmer should’ve vetted this professional scammer a bit harder before hiring. Jellie has a track record of crappy performance and rewarded with 6 months of severance. I hope the next city looking at hiring this turd will pass on him.
The question now is, does the Palmer government understand what due diligence is?
The Palmer city Council is completely at blame and they owe the residents of Palmer a complete and public apology. No ifs ands or buts. They hired this man and they are responsible for his actions. Can’t wait to see who they hire next. And why even elect a mayor it the city manager makes all the decisions. Palmer is a nice town apparently run by fools and clowns
Jellie needs to be investigated for fraud! Three times (and probably several other times)? I am concerned that he is going into these higher positions with the intention of stealing information about the areas for nefarious use that could harm all of these areas (including ours!).
He was forced out by the preservers. This time the Palmerbutters and Jelly didn’t mesh. Tastes have changed and the White bread politics now likes Ham on Rye.
“……He was forced out…….’
Pretty much only happens around here in Palmer, and it will continue like that. If you show up and start trouble, Palmer will run you out on their dead-end rail in a hurry. I hope the cultural refugees from Anchorage (and there are a whole bunch of them) currently flooding into the Wasilla side know this. If there is anything Palmer wants (and has wanted for the past 40+ years), it’s that they don’t want to look like Wasilla.
I am concerned that if he is a fraudster and he has done this to three + areas: what if he is accessing systems he should not be accessing with the intent to implant malicious software or spyware or, as I had posted earlier, he is collecting data and handing it over to another entity for nefarious reasons? I hope that the IT department does an investigation and checks his electronic footprint throughout the borough network.
Ginny, my thoughts exactly. After the meeting they should have confiscated all keys, locked him out of all computers and escorted him out of the building by Palmer police.
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