Palmer council restores funding for emergency communications center; kills independent inquiry into former city manager controversy

Palmer’s council voted to fully fund the city’s emergency services call center at its Nov. 26 meeting, bringing the center’s staff back to six dispatchers and one supervisor. The city’s proposed budget for 2025 had three dispatchers and one supervisor.

The proposed budget had been prepared by former city manager Stephen Jellie and Palmer’s city staff after three dispatchers resigned to go to work for the city of Wasilla, where the pay is better.

The departed staff reduced the center’s budget to $286,800, which Jellie left in the proposed budget, leaving it to the city council to add $114,000 back to fully staff the center. The council has now done that.

The council also restored $160,000 for an opioid services director which was in the 2024 budget but not included in the spending plan for 2025. Capital budget items totaling $448,000 were also added to the budget, mostly for equipment replacements.

The total additions of about $722,000 ate into an estimated $1.5 million surplus that had been in the proposed budget. Palmer’s 2025 city budget will be posted on the city’s website soon, city finance director Gina Davis said.

The emergency services funding was a political hot button. After the three dispatchers quit, Jellie and some council members wanted to explore a shared services arrangement with Wasilla to gain efficiencies.

That touched a nerve, and two council members started a campaign to get Jellie fired, which was supported by workers in Palmer’s public safety department concerned about lost jobs and lower staffing levels. After the controversy grew heated Jellie chose to resign.

In a related development, a split decision by the council at the same meeting brought a decision not to proceed with an independent inquiry into the efforts to oust the former city manager and other circumstances around his resignation.

Mayor Steve Carrington had proposed the inquiry to clear the air around the events so there could be lessons learned, including the appropriate roles of council members and city staff including actions by Palmer’s contract attorney, Sarah Heath.

Heath raised eyebrows when she read an inflammatory letter to the council in public that accused Jellie of inappropriate actions.

Typically, the attorney-client relationship regards communications with the client, in this case the city council, on matters involving disputes and possible litigation to be confidential unless the client releases it to the public. In this case Heath made the letter public herself.

Mayor Carrington and council members James Cooper and Ricard Best favored the independent inquiry while council members Carolina Graver, Victoria Hudson and John Alcantra were against the inquiry.

The procedural motion was to indefinitely table the matter, in effect killing it.