Gilbert’s city clerk saga is set to continue at a special meeting Saturday, when the council will enter closed-session negotiations with the latest candidate for the position.
Talks come less than a week after Interim Clerk Lynn Lorey and Administrative Assistant Marion DeLage resigned at a Sept. 15 special meeting, marking a high point in tensions between staff and elected officials that has persisted throughout the year.
Nancy Sanford, the former clerk in Babbitt who resigned from her role in June, is the leading candidate for the position. She would be the third person to fill the clerk position this year after Lorey and Mike Skrbich, who resigned in March after being placed on leave during an internal investigation by the city in January.
Lorey served as deputy clerk under Skrbich and took over the interim role until last week. The council ended negotiations with her on Aug. 25, rescinding a contract offer after two rounds of proposals and counters.
“In seeing that the negotiations were not productive, it became very clear we were not going to move forward,” said Councilor Paul Skrbec on a Facebook Live feed following the Sept. 15 resignations. “We could not move forward in a way that would be fair to the citizens.”
Lorey and DeLage, who also handles accounts payable and human resources for the city, were engaged in a number of public back and forth exchanges with some council members about overtime, timesheets and public works projects.
Without a full-time clerk and deputy, or an IT person at city hall, DeLage said her and Lorey backfilled the positional duties. They said the short staff and amount of duties necessitated overtime in order to complete the tasks.
“There’s just so much work to do, and there’s really just me doing the whole thing in the office,” DeLage said on Aug. 12, when questioned by Councilor Ryan Redepenning about overtime, who said she should stop at the end of shift and pick it up the next day. “It’s impossible …I genuinely try. I would prefer not to have overtime. I have a family at home as well.”
Several residents packed the Sept. 8 council meeting to support Lorey and oppose an annexation of land and homes in Fayal Township.
She and DeLage would resign a week later.
“For once, after years, I can actually enjoy working with your clerk,” said Paul Chapman, a business owner. “I get answers quickly. She is giving her heart to the city. Do you want to lose her?”
