Chamberlain

WALLA WALLA — For the first time in the 63-year history of Walla Walla’s council-manager form of government, Walla Walla has a female city manager.

Elizabeth Chamberlain served her first day as city manager — without the words “deputy” or “acting” attached — on Dec. 8, after being formally appointed late in the night Dec. 7.

At the end its meeting — which went almost four-and-a-half hours — the Walla Walla City Council voted unanimously to promote Chamberlain, previously the deputy city manager who had been serving as the acting city manager since Nabiel Shawa retired on Oct. 10.

Chamberlain has worked for Walla Walla since 2014. Before becoming deputy city manager in 2020, she served as development services director.

Before coming to Walla Walla, she worked for several cities on the west side of the state, including Auburn.

She said she’s excited to continue her career here.

“Walla Walla is a pretty special place,” she said. “I love working for the city. It’s the best city I’ve ever worked for … I’ve worked for four or five other jurisdictions and Walla Walla is the top.”

Chamberlain said she and Shawa developed a succession plan before Shawa retired. The council could have gone forward with that plan right away, but instead decided on a nationwide search.

This didn’t surprise Chamberlain.

“The hiring of the city manager is the purview of the council,” she said. “Yes, we did have a succession plan in place … But the fact that the council wanted an open recruitment process was their choice.”

The road to hiring Chamberlain was not without controversy — concerning the process, not about Chamberlain’s qualifications.

When the city council decided it would conduct a nationwide search, recruitment firm Strategic Government Resources was brought in to assist. In all, 26 candidates applied, and SGR conducted interviews and helped the council narrow the field to 12 semifinalists.

The council sent questions to the semifinalists, which the candidates answered by video. The plan was for the council then to select five finalists at a special meeting Nov. 18.

However, by the time that meeting arrived, four candidates dropped out of contention, leaving only eight.

At the meeting, the council scheduled an executive session, which is where the controversy began.

With only eight applicants to choose from, the council decided it wasn’t going to pick five finalists.

When the council came emerged from behind closed doors, Mayor Tom Scribner announced the council had decided to forgo the hiring process and offer the job to an unnamed candidate, later revealed to be Chamberlain.

The council did vote on this in open session to make it official, but they did so without any discussion or public comment. All discussion had occurred in private.

Former Walla Walla Mayor Barbara Clark, who served on the city council for 22 years before retiring in 2019, said she thought the decision to change the process was made in executive session and simply announced in open session. She also took issue with the council not naming five finalists as it said it would in its agenda for the special meeting.

At the Dec. 7 meeting, during public comment, she accused the council of breaking state law governing open public meetings.

“All of us who live here, work here or have business here, we need a strong city manager, and we need the best candidate,” Clark said. “Yet you decided in private to choose a manager without even meeting the other candidates or public input.

“You didn’t tell us why you did that,” she continued. “Had you already made up your minds before you started?”

Councilmember Rick Eskil agreed with Clark.

While he said any violation was unintentional, he said it broke the city’s trust in the council and apologized for going along with it.

Scribner pushed back, saying he didn’t think the decision was against the law because the vote took place in public.

Further, he said the council wasn’t required to follow any process. The process agreed on was the council’s own process and he said the council had the right to cancel it at any time.

The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin reached out to city attorney Tim Donaldson for comment about the legality of the meeting, but he did not respond to messages.

After a lengthy executive session on Dec. 7 that was extended multiple times, the council voted to reconsider its decision to forgo the previous hiring process and discussed its options in a public setting.

All the council members, including Eskil, said Chamberlain was the best candidate available.

Eskil said he wished the city had gone forward with its original plan so the public could see that. He said he believes Chamberlain is the correct choice.

After discussion, the council voted unanimously again to terminate the hiring process and offer the job to Chamberlain.

Eskil said it was too late to go backward, though he hoped he and his colleagues would learn from the process.

After the meeting, Clark still had concerns.

“I’m concerned that nobody but Rick Eskil expressed any regret,” Clark. “I’m hoping that they will pledge themselves to abide by the law and their duty to the public.”

Clark declined to comment on if she felt better with Chamberlain’s hiring now that she heard the council’s reasoning.

Chamberlin’s salary is $187,116 a year, which is exactly what Shawa’s salary was when he retired.