Pacific City Councilmember and Mayor Pro Tem James McMahan knew his action at Monday’s council meeting would not sit well with Mayor Cy Sun.
Despite the potential to sow more discord than already existed between the council and Sun, McMahan used his authority in Sun’s absence to draft a memo that ordered the acting city clerk to restore Police Lt. Edwin Massey and Chief John Calkins to full duty and to return their badges, commission cards, keys, guns and access to the City’s computers.
“It weighs pretty heavy that I made a decision like I did,” McMahan said later.
McMahan said he decided to do it after consulting with City Attorney Kenyon Luce and listening to Massey recount his ordeal.
“I weighed that decision since Friday when he locked them out, and I wondered if I had an opening to do this. I thought about whether I had any authority to do anything about this. This is a big deal,” McMahan said.
Sun had placed Massey and Calkins on paid administrative leave March 22, pending an investigation into his claims about the officers’ intimidation and harassment.
On April 4, Pacific’s Civil Service Commission ruled in favor of the officers’ appeals of the suspension, ordering Sun to return them to duty.
But instead of being provided the tools he needed to do his job last Friday, Massey said, he was denied access.
“Since I’ve been reinstated I’ve been denied my keys, I’ve been denied my badge, I’ve been denied my commission card, I’ve been denied access to my computer, and I’m being obstructed from performing the duty which I’ve been hired to perform,” Massey told the council Monday.
Massey said he tried again on Monday morning to retrieve his items, but the acting city clerk informed him that Sun had sent an email directing her to refuse to provide them.
“I informed her that it was my belief that this order given to the mayor by the Civil Service Commission supersedes any order from the mayor,” Massey said.
The council initially passed a motion encouraging Massey, Calkins and anyone else with personal knowledge of Sun’s refusal to restore the officers to file a crime report with the King County Prosecutor for obstructing a law enforcement officer.
During a brief recess later in the meeting, McMahan drafted a letter directing the city clerk to return Massey’s items immediately.
“What I wanted to do was open up the mayor’s office and get myself, Lt. Massey, the acting city clerk and the city attorney, so there is four people there,” McMahan said. “If we’re going to go into somebody’s office, I wanted to make sure we had lots of appropriate witnesses. I wanted to go in there and find their stuff. I heard it was in big manilla envelopes … and get it back to them.”
As no one present had the combination to the City’s safe, however, Massey couldn’t retrieve his items.
On Tuesday morning, Massey presented McMahan’s letter to Sun.
“With that letter I attempted to retrieve my property as outlined, and the mayor refused,” Massey said.
“I’m overriding James McMahan’s memo ordering them back to work, over my jurisdiction and authority as mayor. The same for the Civil Service Commission decisions,” Sun wrote in an email. “I’m empowered to protect the City personnel for safety from harassment and intimidations. My decision to reinstate Massey and Calkins depends on the findings of the investigation. Otherwise, I’m keeping the situation on status quo.”
A King County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson confirmed that they were investigating reports of a threat made against Calkins and Massey, but declined to provide details.
As McMahan sees it, the decision to try and circumvent the mayor came down to simply doing what is right for the residents who elected him.
“I feel comfortable that I acted not in a personal capacity, I acted within my scope as councilmember and my job as a councilmember is acting as the mayor pro tem,” McMahan said. “But yeah, it weighs on me. Cy is going to be pissed, there is no doubt about that. But the thing is you have to do what’s right.”
McMahan continued:
“The reality is that it may not work, but you have to do what’s right. We can disagree about a lot of the things that Cy does, and I certainly do. This one, this is just wrong. This isn’t just a shortsighted decision,” he said. “At the risk of that relationship (with Sun) that I value, as I try to mitigate and minimize some of the things that Cy does that are just bad decisions and disagreements of policy, this is one where you have to do what’s right.”
