Jim Dinley
The Sitka Assembly is unhappy with the municipal administrator’s job performance. After an executive session last night, the Assembly gave Jim Dinley an “unsatisfactory evaluation.”
After three hours behind closed doors, the Assembly issued a brief statement:
“We held an evaluation with Mr. Dinley and Assembly members addressed their particular views on his performance. Mr. Dinley was also afforded an opportunity to express his own points of view. We gave him an unsatisfactory evaluation, and this matter will remain pending.”
Dinley declined to comment to reporters after the meeting, and the Assembly did not go into detail on exactly what it found unsatisfactory.
“It’s now time for the Assembly to decide what that means, to have an unsatisfactory evaluation, and what’s the next step,” Mayor Mim McConnell said after the meeting.
Assembly members will hold another executive session after their regular meeting on April 23 to have that conversation.
Jim Dinley one of two employees in city hall who works directly for the Assembly. The other is the municipal attorney. Both get evaluated every year, and it is both routine and legal for that conversation to happen behind closed doors. The person being evaluated can ask for the conversation to take place out in the open. Dinley said he would prefer the Assembly meet privately.
When it was all over, Mike Reif was the only member to vote against the Assembly’s official statement. He said he wanted to continue the evaluation process at the next meeting, but received no support from other Assembly members.
Monday was Dinley’s first day back on the job after a two-week suspension imposed by the Assembly, in response to a harassment complaint received from a city employee.
Jim Dinley became Sitka’s municipal administrator in 2008, earns about $122,000 a year, and his current contract runs through February 2014.
