Coos Bay’s firing of its finance director has become an election issue in the race for mayor.

A day after the city learned it’s facing a lawsuit from one of its former employees, Mayor Jeff McKeown used Tuesday’s council meeting as a platform to refute allegations he told the city manager to fire Janell Howard.

“I didn’t attempt to influence the decision of the city manager,” McKeown said. “This simply did not happen.”



In an interview Tuesday, he hinted that the timing of the tort claim may be politically motivated. He noted Howard’s notice to the city was dated Oct. 17, the same day ballots were mailed to Coos Bay voters.

Councilor John Muenchrath, who is running for mayor, said nothing about the firing at the meeting. But he criticized City Manager Chuck Freeman’s decision to fire Howard in comments to The (Eugene) Register Guard in a story Tuesday.

McKeown contends two councilors tried to influence Freeman’s decision.

“And that’s too bad,” he said.

After Tuesday’s meeting, both McKeown and Freeman declined to say who they were.

Muenchrath did not return phone calls and did not stay long enough to answer questions after Tuesday’s council meeting.

Freeman fired Howard Sept. 23 at the recommendation of the city’s attorney in the wake of her being stopped exiting a Wal-Mart store with $12 in unpaid groceries. An Oregon State Police investigation found no grounds to support charging Howard with a crime, a verdict that Coos County District Attorney R. Paul Frasier supported.

Freeman still went ahead and fired Howard in part because he said he felt the city could no longer trust her to oversee the public funds.

Howard subsequently mailed a tort claim to the city, arguing she was fired for her actions in a dispute with the city’s auditor in 2006.

McKeown denied giving preferential treatment to the city’s auditor, Wall & Wall, in its dispute with Howard.

“My guidance came from the head of the state’s audit division,” he said.

McKeown was a member of the three-man audit committee that handled the fallout from the audit. The committee also included Muenchrath and former councilor Roger Gould.

In the Register-Guard article, Muenchrath shared his concerns about Freeman’s decision to fire Howard.



Although he said it was appropriate for OSP to investigate the Wal-Mart incident, Muenchrath was critical of having Coos Bay police investigate an additional allegation that Howard was banned from shopping at Albertsons for switching price tags.

“It seems like you’re kind of changing horses midstream here,” he said. “I don’t know that those rumors should have been followed up.”

Muenchrath was the only councilor quoted in the article. The newspaper said McKeown declined to comment for the story.

Freeman said Coos Bay police looked into the Albertsons allegation after OSP officials recommended an internal inquiry.

“It revealed a pattern of behavior that is not consistent with someone handling $49 million of taxpayer money,” he said.

In Howard’s tort claim, Albertsons’ service operations manager was reported to have said management never barred Howard from the store, never said anything to her, and has neither surveillance footage nor any documentation about any bakery tag switching.

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