Palmer’s city manager, hired to start work in late August, may not make it much longer. He’s upset the apple cart in Palmer to such an extent that the city council is going to have an emergency meeting about him.
On Tuesday, Stephen Jellie suspended 27-year Palmer Police veteran and Chief Dwayne Shelton. Shelton is highly regarded in the community and the news came as a shock.
“At 3:42 p.m. Mr. Jellie placed me on paid administrative leave. I received a written letter at 5:45 p.m. He ordered me to turn in my badge and gun, threatened to have me arrested by the state police,” Shelton told the Palmer City Council on Tuesday. Shelton said it was retaliatory “because I brought forth public safety concerns and employee rights regarding significant policy changes he is implementing.”
There are concerns that Jellie has also threatened people who work for the city.
A letter by the city attorney, Sarah Heath, lays out some of the controversy about Jellie, was read aloud to the Palmer City Council at Tuesday’s meeting:
Jellie will be the subject of the emergency meeting of the Palmer City Council at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 9, of the city council. At some point, the council is expected to go into executive session to discuss personnel matters.
Pam Melin, now retired from the city council, said she has advised the council in her role a citizen that Jellie is dangerous, and that the city is at risk with him in his current position.
Jellie has had controversies at his previous job as fire chief for Teton County and in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He also resigned from his job as a city manager in Ogdensburg, New York, but he said, during his interview process in Palmer, that the disputes were as a result of budget cuts.
After arriving in Palmer, Jellie took down the Palmer Police Dispatch unit and routed emergency calls through the borough’s Mat-Com. He also ended the practice of having police officers take police vehicles home with them so they could respond to emergencies at a moment’s notice.
Shelton said, “When officers respond to a criminal act in progress, whether it be a school shooting … they would have to drive by and pass that school in most cases to get to their car, warm it up, thaw it out, to then go back to take care of the situation.”
Shelton said he swore an oath to protect and serve all the people of Palmer as well as in Alaskans in general.
“I do not take this oath lightly, and have served willingly and unwaveringly for the past 25 years here in Palmer. In 45 days, Mr. Jellie has all but undone the public safety fabric of our society that you guys together, with the citizens and employees of Palmer have woven.”
Sounds like a real piece of work.
I bet his politics are liberal
Certainly a liberal. Ogdensuburg, New York is on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River, just across from the Canuck’s. There are a pile of colleges in Ogdensburg, and although the surrounding rural area is conservative, the city is most certainly run by liberals. A democrat ran unopposed for mayor and all the city council members are democrats.
ogdensburg is not liberal in the slightest. not even close. don’t talk about things you don’t know with such certainty
What has gone wrong with Palmer?
Anchorage liberals?
I did not know who the current Palmer mayor and council members are. I used the search function on this site to research them. Apparently according to MRA they are conservatives and Republicans. Since the liberals were recalled a few years back I would imagine the rest of the council would be conservative. My opinion is the conservatives thought he would be a budget hawk. Apparently the defending the police was not a good idea.
Lots of hippies moving to Palmer since it’s a short drive on the road system from Los Anchorage.
I went to a community council meeting last year, and to my utter horror, I found (not one, but two) former Anchorage Assembly members in attendance as new residents.
There are housing developments popping up around here like dandelions. Guess who is moving in?
Yeah, the cultural refugees are coming hot and heavy, and like never before. I’ve lived out here for over 50 years, and through all the growth, I’ve never seen it to this extent before. The big retail suppliers and fast food operators attract all the wrong folks, and the California-style politics in Anchorage is pushing them here as hard as the easier life is pulling them. If I wasn’t so old, I’d move to Southeast…….no, not Juneau………
With an employment record that looks like instability at best this hire proves the Palmer folks that hired this dude are speculative gamblers.
Jellie sounds like a seagull manager. Flies in, poops on everything and flies away.
Did that guy just get out of Wyoming in time before it all burnt down? Isn’t that interesting that he was a fire chief there, left and now Wyoming is burning up? Yeah, we don’t need that guy in Alaska. We have enough fires on our own without him here. Additionally, isn’t Palmer the backbone of our emergency services here in the Valley? The new guy needs to be FIRED!
Hang in there Chief Dwayne.
Apparently someone missed some key information during the vetting process when hiring the manager.
Firefighter need to be prompt when seconds count. Unfortunately for Palmer they were a few months late with this:
‘https://www.nyspffa.org/main/uncategorized/fire-fighters-censure-stephen-jellie-for-conduct-in-new-york-and-wyoming-during-international-convention/
How did we not know about his previous controversial background? And if we did, why the hell did we hire him? Where is our city council in all this? Maybe this is what happens when only 6% of our registered Palmer voters turn out for local non-November elections as was the case last week!
And WHO are the one that hired this piece of Sh-t. Sure didn’t vet him for the job. Well done folks. You all should resign for being incompetent for your actions.
Your local police department should be involved with the hiring of the next person.
Who did the interview processes? This is a should not have done type of hiring. Where is the internal fact checking of any new City Manager? Who had final say on his hiring? Fix the Problem, the Problem is out of control!!!!
Why was Stephen Jellie hired in the first place? Controversies at his previous job as fire chief for Teton County and in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and resigning from his job as a city manager in Ogdensburg, New York should be red flags that something is not right. Do they not do background checks.
“The new city manager seems bent on creating chaos rather than administering a smooth operation. Demanding badges is just the beginning of their audacious antics. How about focusing on the community’s needs instead of unchecked ego trips?”
Send Jellie back to NY. Sounds like the next thing he will want to do is defund the police. Who the heck was in charge of this hiring? The City should obviously perform its due diligence, which should also include a panel of community leaders to put any candidate through a Q&A session with them.
Stephen Jellie was censured by the International Association of Firefighters in August due to similar actions at his previous departments. The article can be found here-
‘https://www.nyspffa.org/main/uncategorized/fire-fighters-censure-stephen-jellie-for-conduct-in-new-york-and-wyoming-during-international-convention/
It should not be just Palmer that is upset about that left-wing nutjob Palmer City mayor. All of MSB should be upset. Mat-Com is owned and operated by the City of Wasilla. The City of Wasilla Mayor is happy to squash the conservative voice at a meeting and let the left speak – remember the Public Library porn book upheaval? Personally, I trust the City of Wasilla Mayor no further than I can throw her…which is not at all. If Mat-Com were to go down, Palmer PD was supposed to pick up the 9-1-1 calls from what I understand. IF that left-wing nutjob Palmer City mayor stays in office and has his way, he will wipe out all of our emergency services. Again, if Mat-Com goes down and the Palmer City Manager wiped out all of Palmer’s emergency services and LEO departments…we have NO RESPONSE teams. People from all over the valley need to speak out against Jellie. By the way, do a search on Jellie and see how well-received he was in other communities in other states. He is a job hopper.
failure of the city council. When I heard he was being hired in August I contacted people in Jackson. Here is the response I got. “He came in and tried to streamline an old school, tight knit community of firefighters and was promptly punted when he pissed off too many people too fast.” Sounds familiar.
And this is how the deep state starts to infiltrate our inner-city
politics. Hopefully he will lose his job
I guess no one in Alaska has the ability to do the job?
looks like a continuing scam.. get hired for a short period… do outlandish things until he’s fired and settles for a big pay out… seems criminal.
He’s the Con and they are the Rubes…..
Sounds like MAGA.
Yes, the Troopers SHOULD investigate.
Sounds like a violation of AS11.41.530 (Coercion) occurred…and it seems that Jellie committed that felony or at least attempted to. Let’s not even talk about interference with official acts.
Someone needs to inform Jellie that Troops work for the State of Alaska and we don’t give two sh**s about what a city manager or mayor wants. We don’t work for them and as far as we’re concerned they aren’t special.
Who hired this guy? What’s up with Palmer lately? Too many well-to-do blue staters or Federal employees move there?
Was there a city council vote on hiring this guy? The vote tally would be interesting to know.
He needs to be made unwelcome in our community.
The last thing we need is failures and charlatans from other communities coming here.
And the people that hired this loser need to be confronted.
How does a “city manager” have control of the police department in Palmer?? What idiots hired this sorry P.O.S.??
Isn’t there a probationary period? The guy could not have characterized himself accurately on his application. Here’s Wyoming articles that are politely candid:
‘https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/01/10/after-months-of-complaints-over-tyrannical-style-jackson-fire-chief-on-leave/
‘https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_0b707e0d-6666-5c2b-9e88-87ca43dd05d1.html
… and then a lawsuit filed by a sympathetic citizen:
‘https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/02/19/lawsuit-claims-two-teton-county-commissioners-conspired-to-oust-fire-chief/
Hopefully Palmer can extricate itself without too much damage.
Lesson learned hopefully. Small communities should always look to hire within first before going outside. I bet this individual also got a relocation allowance. If he got one coming, he should not get one going. If they currently don’t have a probation period for all new hires in Palmer, they need to implement one now such that and individual doesn’t have to be bought out of his/her contract to fail. Check his previous workplaces, probably works to get fired jut to get a pay out in the end and not have to work for another 6 months. His buy out should be administered monthly, not as a lump sum. Then not such a benefit to get fired. Just saying. Played Postmaster for Palmer in the ’80’s in January/February. It appears that things have really changed there since then.
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