After some 42 hours of rampant speculation spread through Blue Lake that long-time City Manager Amanda “Mandy” Mager had been fired by the city council during a closed session performance review May 6, Finance Manager Dani Burkhart sent an official, 72-word statement from the city at 12:15 p.m. on May 8.
“City Manager Amanda ‘Mandy’ Mager and the city council have mutually decided to end their relationship effective May 9,” the statement reads before noting the council expressed its gratitude for Mager’s near 10-years of “dedicated service” to the city, wishing her the best in “future endeavors” and noting the city will appoint an interim city manager while conducting a “comprehensive recruitment process.”
Despite numerous Journal inquiries to various officials, it’s unclear exactly when the council decided to “mutually” part ways with Mager, whose contract the council had voted to extend with a $10,000 annual raise in March, why that decision was made or which council members supported it. And that constitutes an apparent violation of California open meeting laws, which, with limited exceptions, require the public’s business to be done in public, with an official record.
While the city’s statement indicates the council made the decision to part ways with Mager, City Attorney Ryan Plotz told the Journal via email “no reportable action was announced” following the May 6 closed session performance review. Asked, then, when the council decided to part ways with its city manager, Plotz responded, “As for any further details, I am not in a position to comment further as this is a personnel matter.”
Mayor John Sawatzky similarly declined to answer when the council’s decision was made.
“I’m just doing as directed by our city attorney to direct you to city staff,” Sawatzky said, later acknowledging that by “staff” he meant back to Plotz, an attorney with The Mitchell Law Firm, who is contracted to provide it legal services. “I’m told we are not allowed to comment.”
None of the four other members of the Blue Lake City Council have responded to Journal inquiries. The Journal requested copies of Mager’s letter of resignation and employment severance agreement from Burkhart, who responded personnel records are not public records and she was unable to provide them. When the Journal responded that city officials’ letters of resignation and severance agreements are absolutely public records, Burkhart referred the paper to Plotz, who said he would provide the agreement once it is “finalized and fully executed.” (We asked Plotz to identify what provision of the California Public Records Act (CPRA) would allow him to withhold the document until it is “finalized and fully executed,” and he responded only that he would process the request as a records request and “respond accordingly within the time permitted by law.” (It’s worth noting that while the CPRA allows agencies 10 days to search out requested records and respond to a requester, it also provides that documents that don’t need to be searched out and are unquestionably public should be produced without delay.) Once again, Plotz declined to comment further “on this personnel matter.”
Multiple Journal attempts to reach Mager for this story were unsuccessful.
David Snyder, executive director of the First Amendment Coalition, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting and protecting open government, said the situation is an apparent violation of the state’s Ralph M. Brown Act.
First, Snyder said if the council decided in closed session to reach a severance agreement with Mager, the law would require that to have been reported out following the closed session, detailing the action taken and which council members voted in favor of it. Snyder pointed to California Government Code Section 54957.1(a)(5), which holds that any closed session action taken to “affect the employment status of a public employee” must be reported at the meeting during which the closed session was held.
“If the council took a vote on anything, that would definitely qualify as an action,” Snyder said. “If they had a conversation that didn’t lead to any conclusion, that didn’t lead to any action or any decision to take action, that would probably not be.”
But the city’s statement indicates the council “decided” to part ways with Mager, so if that decision wasn’t made in closed session May 6, when would it have been made? Plotz and Sawatzky declined to say, while other members of the city council haven’t responded to inquiries. But there doesn’t seem to be an answer that wouldn’t be legally problematic, as the council has not held an official meeting — in open or closed session — since May 6.
“They can’t do a vote by email or a vote by straw poll,” Snyder said. “That would be an unauthorized meeting or a serial meeting.”
Snyder further noted that if “ending” the city’s relationship with Mager was a potential topic of discussion for the May 6 meeting, it should have been agendized as such, not as a simple “performance evaluation,” as it appeared on the meeting’s agenda (and five other of the council’s closed session agenda since the start of the year), but also as a potential employee discipline/dismissal/release.
The Journal has requested copies of Mager’s current contract, as well as the severance agreement and documentation of when the council “decided” to part ways with her, and we’ll report on those documents when they are received.
The Ralph M. Brown Act provides enforcement steps citizens can take to
allege violations of the act’s provisions and either prevent their recurrence, stop actions in progress or void past actions. Section VII of the First Amendment Coalition’s Brown Act Primer here outlines the necessary steps.
In the meantime, Mager’s departure seems to have intensified significant existing divides in the city over its lack of compliance with state planning mandates (and state threats of $100,000 monthly fines), a mixed-use development by DanCo and an ambitious 5-acre bike park under construction on Taylor Way. A group of residents has launched an effort to recall Sawatzky and Councilmembers Kat Napier and Elise Scafani, all of whom took office after the November election, Napier winning her seat when her name was pulled out of an envelope after the final election results had her tied with incumbent Adelene Jones.
Editor’s note: This story was updated from a previous version to correct the manner in which the electoral tie between Adelene Jones and Kat Napier was broken. The Journal regrets the error.
This article appears in Summer of Fun 2025.
This is so dumb. Were the bids for the project even made public or are we just shaking hands with Dan Johnson now?
Part of the typical remedy for Brown Act Violations is that the action – in this case firing Mandy – is effectively undone, and has to be redone properly. might be worth highlighting in stories about this – the firing is effectively invalid due to the Brown Act violation…