City Manager brought back to work in 4-3 vote

MONTROSE – During the Feb. 25 city council meeting, Mayor Pro-Tem Colleen Brown made the motion to remove City Manager Frank Crosby from administrative leave, with the stipulation that Attorney Otis Stout counsel Crosby on a new policy the council intends to adopt regarding the use of city computers and email.

Stout was directed to continue the investigations into both alleged misuse of city property targeted at Crosby, as well as allegations of illegal search procedures, which violate the city charter, directed at Mayor Clint Diffin and Councilman Frank DeForke.

Prior to her motion to remove Crosby from administrative leave, Brown explained that she has an issue with the city paying Crosby to sit at home when he was needed in the city office.

“I think we need to bring our city manager back to work,” she stated.

During discussion of the motion, Councilman Tom Bigelow commented, “I feel we should wait to finish the investigation.”

Brown responded, “What can we do to get our manager back here working for us? There are a lot of things he could be doing for us.”

Stout said it was up to the council whether to bring Crosby back as soon as Monday, or let him sit at home until the investigation is completed, which is expected to be another two weeks. Stout reported that he had already interviewed 11 individuals in conjunction with the investigation.

Brown asked Stout if there were an advantage to keeping the manager off.

Stout responded that there could be an advantage “so there isn’t a potential for wrong-doing, or retaliation.” He added that the benefit of bringing the manager back would be “at least we wouldn’t be paying a man to be sitting at home.”

Brown asked if Stout knew whether Crosby was willing to come back.

Stouts responded, “He is willing to come back.”

Brown in turn moved to bring City Manager Frank Crosby off of administrative leave. After further discussion by the council, they voted 4-3 in favor of removing Crosby from administrative leave so he could return to work, following the installation of firewall software with enhanced filtering to screen words that could be interpreted as offensive.

In a related statement at the beginning of the meeting, Montrose resident Mark Richard who is an OSHA representative, said he found a case where a 32 year atwill state employee had been released. He explained that the findings in this case were that progressive discipline should have been applied, even though the subject was an at-will employee. He added that the results of the investigation “could punch a hole in this.”

Richard, DeForke and Stout had all expressed concern over the potential for a lawsuit in conjunction with the case under investigation.