Carthage council members push for removal of leaders despite pleas from employees for reset

Apr. 18—CARTHAGE, Mo. — The word "trust" came up dozens of times in Wednesday's special meeting of the Carthage City Council, held to discuss hiring attorneys as a majority of council members push to remove Mayor Dan Rife and City Administrator Greg Dagnan.

The council approved a no-confidence motion last week on Rife and voted to fire Dagnan.

Dagnan's removal was blocked by Rife, who says the city attorney's firing requires approval of both the council and the mayor, while council member Tiffany Cossey, leading voice in the effort to remove the current administration, claimed again Wednesday that Dagnan already has been fired.

While the council tabled all actions on the two items on Wednesday's agenda, they heard a letter, signed by 69 city employees, supporting Rife and Dagnan and heard statements from five other city employees and one resident not employed by the city in support of the mayor and city administrator.

They also heard from a business owner, who said the parties need to end the fighting, and Bill Putnam, who said he was chairman of the local political action committee Carthage Citizens United, saying the group has never called for the termination of any city employees.

Some employees said they've lost trust in the seven council members who voted to fire Dagnan and impeach Rife.

"Due to this mistrust in most of the City Council, we are on the verge of losing multiple employees to other organizations," said Michael Miller, Carthage human resources director, reading from the letter signed by 69 employees of the police department, street department, City Hall and parks department. "While these positions can eventually be replaced, you cannot replace the many years of knowledge, experience, and dedication that these employees have."

"With confidence, the great thing about that is it can be renewed simply by doing the right thing," Miller said after reading from the letter. "I do find it concerning that the only council member who had any comment at all about our employee letter simply said employees aren't involved. If we aren't involved and it doesn't affect us, why are 30 of us sitting out in the crowd now?"

Chelsea Cholly, events coordinator in the Carthage Parks and Recreation Department, called attempts to remove city staff without justification — referring to Dagnan — "troubling."

"With little interest shown by most council members in seeking out the information necessary to make well-informed decisions, it's been deeply concerning to watch the council move forward with such actions without giving proper consideration to the facts or engaging in meaningful dialogue with those directly affected," Cholly said. "Such behavior not only undermines the trust and confidence with the city staff but also erodes public trust in the city council's ability to govern fairly and responsibly. I urge the council to reconsider its actions and prioritize transparency, accountability and fairness in all dealings with city staff."

Bill Smith, a street department employee, called council members' claims of a loss of trust in city leaders troubling.

"It will take far more than that to ever convince me that it has become necessary for a highly capable, highly trained city leader to be terminated," Smith said. "If there is a trust issue in Mr. Dagnan, and Mr. Dagnan has done nothing wrong or illegal, then the trust issue is on each of you. It would seem that the best course of action going forward would be to have discussions to resolve those trust issues and move forward together for the good of the city — not this nuclear option that you or the majority of the council seem so hellbent on seeing through."

Alan Snow, the senior member of the Carthage City Council and mayor pro tem, said he was disappointed to hear employees have lost trust in the council.

"I'm the chair of the budget committee, and we're in the budget process right now. And if I don't forward a project for any department, are they going to question that and have 50 people show up to come talk against it?" Snow said after the meeting. "The trust in the city leadership that we're working on removing is the trust that the council has lost. Those people are the advisers and leaders of the council also. So how can I trust if I have something in the council, whether it's a council bill or the budget or anything else? How can I trust that I'm getting all the information I need, accurate information, and that I am not going to be questioned about any decisions I'm going to make?"

The meeting ended after a lengthy discussion about a contract brought by Cossey to hire municipal attorney Phil Martin, from Kansas City, to be the council's attorney in the effort to impeach Rife.

That motion was delayed until Tuesday because city leaders said Cossey hadn't followed proper procedure and applied for a council bill, which is needed to approve any contract.

Rife said he wouldn't stand in the way of the contract, and the council voted to place it on the agenda for the Tuesday, April 23, regular meeting.