Resigned Gig Harbor administrator defends his record with women

“Buddy.”

That’s one of the words, along with an inopportune lawyer joke, that Wade Farris says ended his career as city administrator of Gig Harbor.

“Someone complained that I called guys ‘buddy,’ ” he said. “Well, I call everybody ‘buddy.’ I call my dog ‘buddy. I call everybody I meet ‘buddy.”

Farris, 67, resigned last week from his $158,000-a-year job after he was accused by an employee of “treating women differently than men” and by Mayor Kit Kuhn of asking an “improper question” during a job interview.

In an interview Monday, Farris adamantly denied being disrespectful of the women who worked for him. He said he was still mystified by the accusations, which seemed to him to be trivial.

“One allegation was that I listened to men’s stories more than women’s,” he said. “Another was that I had a ‘command presence.’ They were all on that level.”

The job interview question was “a lawyer joke, made in jest, that had nothing to do with women,” he said. The woman attorney he was interviewing did not complain, he said, and later sent him a friendly email.

Farris arrived for an interview with The Gateway at a Cutter’s Point Coffee in Gig Harbor with a worn briefcase packed with notes. Dressed leisurely in a blue polo shirt and brown slacks, he checked his notes occasionally as he talked.

A retired Air Force major general, Farris is a tall man who walks with a slight limp, the result of knee surgery. His prominent ears and wide grin give him a boyish look, and he retains a slight Alabama drawl.

At 6-foot-4, “I’m a big guy,” he acknowledged. “That’s one reason I always try to keep it light. I tell a joke now and then. It’s always worked for me in the past.”

Farris, who came to Gig Harbor after five years in a similar job in the Eastern Washington city of Othello, had been city administrator less than a year when he was placed on paid leave June 3.

Kuhn said the city received a complaint that Farris treated women employees differently than the men who worked for him. Kuhn said he also sent Farris a letter of reprimand in April for unspecified “unprofessional behavior” during the job interview with a prospective city attorney.

Neither Kuhn not the city’s outside counsel would describe the complaints further, citing legal constraints. At least one investigation is continuing, Kuhn said last week.

After seven weeks on leave, Farris agreed July 23 to resign. He told friends it was under pressure. He received $45,480 and a statement that his actions “did not constitute misconduct.”

Farris maintains that he was always careful to treat his male and female subordinates in the same way.

“I spent 39 years in the Air Force,” he said. “For at least the last 25 years, the military has been scrupulous about its treatment of women and people of color. If I had a pattern of treating women differently, it certainly would have been noticed.”

Farris noted that he had never had an Inspector General’s complaint against him, rare for a general officer.

“If asked, I could give you a long list of women who served under me who would be shocked at these allegations,” he said.

The same would be true of women employees at City Hall, Farris said.

“All the other women in the workplace would say that I respect them and treat them the same as I do men,” he said.

Since Farris’ suspension became public, several people at City Hall have called The Gateway, some anonymously, to allege that the city administrator was “set up” because the mayor wanted to get rid of him. The mayor has denied this.

Asked about that, Farris demurred.

“There are conspiracy theories,” he acknowledged. “Part of me thinks that, but it is something that would be really hard to prove.”

Some of the questions asked by the city’s investigator, he said, “seemed to me like they were trying to set up a straw man.”

He also declined to name or discuss the motives of the woman employee, a mid-level supervisor, who filed the complaint against him.

Farris did note that in the military, if someone feared discipline, they might file a complaint against their commanding officer, “and then any disciplinary action would become ‘retaliation.’”

He said he spoke to the employee “once or twice about problems” but had not planned to take any disciplinary action against her.

Farris also declined to elaborate on the joking remark he made during the interview with the lawyer, saying only that it was “clean” and had nothing to do with women. He said the lawyer later send him an email “saying how much she enjoyed the interview and she was looking forward to meeting me again.”

The remark Farris made during the job interview was reported to the mayor by the city’s human resources director, Kameil Borders, who was present, Farris said.

An email from Borders to Farris is among a batch of documents released by the city after an public-records request by The Gateway. It hints at a fraught relationship with Farris.

“Well, I can’t sleep,” she wrote on April 11. “The last two days I felt like you were luring me in your office just to ask questions, making me feel very uncomfortable and make our working relationship very awkward.”

Farris sent an apology, saying, “From now on I will NOT bring up matters relating to my personal situation when we are meeting.”

Farris said Monday the exchange occurred shortly after the complaint against him, and he was just trying to get more information about it. He said he regarded Borders as “very competent and dedicated.”

“We had a good relationship right up until the time I left,” he said.

The email exchanges also include several in which Farris is rebuked by the mayor for forgetting or neglecting some detail of his job, and one or two in which Kuhn asks Farris not to bother him with details.

“I have enough on my plate,” Kuhn emailed Farris in one exchange. “You decide on this.”

This spring, Kuhn placed Farris on a formal “performance improvement program,” which can be a preliminary to termination.

After the City Council approved the separation agreement June 23, Kuhn said that it had “more to do with day-to-day job performance” than with the complaints involving women.

“I did feel that he didn’t take the job seriously,” the mayor said of Farris. “It was almost as if he were just doing a job shadow.”

At the coffee shop on Monday, Farris seemed more troubled by that remark than anything else.

“If a person works 50 to 60 hours a week, I think he takes the job seriously,” Farris said, his face reddening. “If a person comes back to work 10 days after knee surgery, I think he takes the job seriously.”

Farris acknowledged that he and Kuhn had “different philosophies about leading people.”

“He could be difficult to work with at times,” he said.

Farris said he feels the mayor broke a “handshake” agreement that the separation would be described publicly as “amicable.” He’s been told by recruiters, he said, that the whole affair “will definitely affect my chances of getting employment again.”

Nevertheless, Farris said he enjoyed his time in Gig Harbor, especially the “top-notch people” who work for the city. And he plans to seek work in the same field again, even if it will probably mean another move for him and his family.

“It’s a meaningful occupation, and I enjoy doing it,” he said.

This story was originally published July 31, 2019 at 10:12 AM.