Alameda city manager on the hot seat
Alameda City Manager Jill Keimach could be shown the door Monday night because she secretly taped two City Council members she claims were trying to pressure her into hiring their preferred candidate for fire chief.
Keimach, who earns $250,000 a year, was placed on paid leave last month after the council learned that two of its members — Malia Vella and Jim Oddie — were secretly recorded during their private meeting with the city manager to discuss the chief ’s appointment.
According to Keimach, Vella and Oddie warned her in the conversation last fall that it would be “in the interest of labor peace” for her to appoint the past president of the town’s powerful firefighter’s union, Domenick Weaver ,as the city’s new fire chief.
Weaver had the backing of the firefighters union and at least two dozen letters of support — including from East Bay Assemblyman Rob Bon-
ta, former Alameda City Manager John Russo and the city’s retiring fire chief, Doug Long.
In the taped conversation, the council members also allegedly told Keimach that making the right pick would “avoid an incident similar to the one involving Raymond Zack,” a reference to the Alameda man who died from a suicide drowning off Crown Beach in 2011 while police and fire crews watched from the shore.
Keimach said she took the drowning reference as a “veiled threat.” The city manager told us she decided to tape the council members after Alameda Police Chief Paul Rolleri told her the council members had said that if she didn’t pick Weaver, “there would be three votes to fire” her.
Keimach, however, said that Weaver, a city fire captain, didn’t meet the job’s minimum requirements. And while she agreed to give Weaver an interview, she also conducted a national search and ultimately settled on former Salinas Fire Chief Edmond Rodriguez.
Fearing that she would, in fact, be fired for choosing an outsider, Keimach laid out her allegations in an Oct. 2, 2017, letter to the City Council, claiming the selection process had been “driven by unseemly political pressure.”
The letter, in turn, prompted the City Council to spend $50,000 to hire a Southern California attorney, Michael Jenkins, to investigate.
According to our sources, Keimach told the investigator about the taping.
Taping a conversation without permission of all parties is illegal in California under most circumstances, and the revelation turned Jenkins’ investigation on its ear. Keimach was placed on administrative leave last month, with full pay, while the council weighed its options.
One source familiar with the investigator’s 80-page report said it recommends disciplinary action against Keimach for the secret taping. But Keimach and her attorney, Karl Olson, both insist the taping was done legally — and with the full knowledge of the city attorney.
“I have worked in the public sector for 32 years, and this was the only time I felt I was put in a position where I would be asked to do something that was not legal, and be threatened by it,” Keimach told us. “So before I considered the taping, I talked to the city attorney about it, and we agreed it was legal at the time.”
And she claims the tape bares out her fears.
Alameda City Attorney Janet Kern said neither she nor the council were “at liberty to comment” on the matter. She said the city “was not trying to hide anything” and she hoped the full facts would eventually be disclosed.
And Vella, who is vice mayor, cautioned against a rush to judgment that she had done anything to threaten the city manager.
“I categorically deny Ms. Keimach’s allegations,” she said. “When she raised these concerns in October, the City Council — including myself — voted to retain an independent, outside law firm to investigate Ms. Keimach’s allegations.”
A spokesman for fellow councilman Oddie declined comment.
Councilwoman Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft, who voted against the dismissal hearing set for Monday, also declined to talk about specifics of the case. But she said constituents were calling up and asking why the same council members who had supposedly threatened the city manager would now be allowed to vote on her dismissal.
“There is a feeling out there that this is being steamrolled,” Ezzy Ashcraft said.
Keimach and her attorney were in negotiations with the city over an exit deal when they learned the council had voted 3-2 to calendar the closed session to consider her dismissal.
“If they fire her, we certainly know our way to the courthouse,” Olson said.
It’s not the first time that intrigue has taken over Alameda City Hall.
In 2010 then-Interim City Manager Ann Marie Gallant alleged that a city councilwoman had illegally leaked confidential information to the local firefighters’ union and SunCal Companies, a Southern California developer that was seeking a deal to redevelop Alameda Point.
The council voted to put Gallant on leave for the duration of her twoyear contract, then declined to renew it, prompting Gallant to sue for wrongful termination.
Gallant later lost in court, and the councilwoman was cleared of wrongdoing. San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross