City Agrees to Pay $200,000 in Attorney Fees in Ellis Matter

City Manager Mark Shepard has signed a final settlement in the Charlyn Ellis matter – she will receive the $1.00 damages the court had already ordered, and her attorney, Jesse Buss, will receive $200,000 in fees. Ellis says her fees will ultimately be paid by the City’s legal insurance.

However, the City has already spent at least $260,000 on its own legal fees, which will be paid with taxpayer dollars.

This matter arose late in 2023, when the City’s five member Leadership Committee sought to oust Ward 5 City Councilor Ellis from her seat. Of the committee, only Mayor Charles Maughan and City Manager Mark Shepard continue to have roles as city officials. The city council’s president and vice-president chose not to seek reelection in 2024, and City Attorney Jim Brewer has retired.

Why they tried to oust Ellis

Ellis, in addition to being a City Councilor, was at the time also Chair of the City’s Climate Action Advisory Board, or CAAB. The city employee that once supported the CAAB, left for other employment and was never replaced. Boards like these typically have a mix of community volunteers and electeds like City Councilor Ellis, and they often need support from paid staff to identify opportunities and challenges, and to keep the board in compliance with public meeting laws – they often compile agendas, keep minutes and post publicly available meeting videos.

Ellis, looking to remedy the need for help at the CAAB, initiated a conversation with her fellow CAAB members about asking the City Council to direct City Manager Mark Shepard to seek a replacement for the departed staffer, first by posting the job, and then by keeping the City Council updated about progress. One CAAB member so moved, another seconded, and the motion passed.

At the time, more than one Board member expressed their sense that senior City staff doesn’t view CAAB, and by extension, the climate, as a priority.

Five days later, on Sept. 18, 2023 Ellis took the matter to the City Council, though her motion never came to a vote, given the City Attorney advised that directing the City Manager to make a hire would violate the City’s Charter. The Council instead approved a motion directing the City Manager to assure CAAB had the City support required for monthly meetings.

Wait, what did that have to do with seeking to expel Ellis?

Well, someone approached a member of the City Council’s Leadership Committee to complain that Ellis’s actions violated the City Charter. We asked all the then members of the Leadership Committee to identify the complainant – all of them responded to us, but none named the complainant.  Further, they were unwilling to disclose who it was that directed the City Attorney to draft a resolution expelling Ellis.

Here’s the Charter section the complainant, and/or Leadership Committee claims Ellis violated.

Section 23(f) of the City Charter says, “Neither the Mayor nor any member of the Council shall in any manner, directly or indirectly, by suggestion or otherwise, attempt to influence or coerce the Manager in the making of any appointment or removal of any officer or employee or in the purchase of supplies; or attempt to exact any promise relative to any appointment from any candidate for Manager, or discuss, directly or indirectly, with the Manager the matter of specific appointments to any City office or employment. A violation of the foregoing provisions of this section shall forfeit the office of the offender. Nothing in this section shall be construed, however, as prohibiting the Council, while in open session, from discussing with or suggesting to the Manager, fully and freely, anything pertaining to the City affairs or the interests of the City.”

In short, the Leadership Committee scheduled the Due Process Hearing to consider if Ellis had forfeited her seat on the Council.

Ellis filed a lawsuit

Ellis filed a federal lawsuit to put a stop to this whole thing – and while awaiting judgement she also ran for another term. She was already reasonably popular with voters, and the City’s actions had the effect of skyrocketing that popularity even more, so she wound up running unopposed.

Now serving her fifth term, the new council has elected her as their vice-president.

What the court decided

In finding for Ellis, the court concluded the City and some of its officials had acted both unconstitutionally, and wait for it… retaliatorily.

We asked Oregon City attorney Jesse Buss, who represented Ellis, for comment.

“What Judge Aiken did today is strike down most of Section 23(f) of the Corvallis City Charter as unconstitutional under both Article 1, section 8 of the Oregon Constitution and the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Judge Aiken also found that the City unconstitutionally retaliated against Councilor Ellis for exercising her protected First Amendment rights.

The judge agreed with Councilor Ellis that the purpose of Section 23(f) is to combat cronyism and patronage—in other words, corruption. But Section 23(f) was worded way too broadly so that it prohibited totally innocent speech. That’s what happened here; Councilor Ellis didn’t say or do anything that was corrupt — for example she didn’t try to get the City Manager to hire a family member, or award a city sewer or paving contract to a friend.

No, Councilor Ellis was prosecuted under Section 23(f) only because she discussed the City’s need to hire a Climate Program Specialist, and asked the City Council to have the City Manager get going on that hiring process. The City Council had already decided to dedicate funding to climate work. So Councilor Ellis was just doing her job. And for doing her job, she almost lost it.”

Correction: A prior version of this story had not included that the City’s legal insurance would be paying Ellis’ legal fees.

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