City employees’ complaints fill 73 pages, most of them about the mayor

When Gig Harbor city employees were asked in an anonymous survey to rate Mayor Kit Kuhn and his administrators, they didn’t mince words.

Among them: “Tyrant,” “bully,” “micro-manager,” “horrible,” “incompetent,” “under-educated,” “heavy-handed,” “suspicious,” “disrespectful,” “controlling.”

And those are just the ones that can be printed.

“Mayor Kuhn has deliberately sabotaged good employees, created hostile working environment, and has shown himself on multiple occasions to be misogynistic,” wrote an employee in Public Works. “This mayor is a disgusting human being who does not deserve to lead this city.”

“The man is a bully and has a disorder,” wrote another worker. “He needs to seek help. Please Mayor, do not run again. We need a break.”

The comments were among 73 pages collected during an online survey by a California consulting firm, InsightLink, commissioned by the City Council to discover why so many employees were leaving. The pages were withheld, at the insistence of the mayor, when the survey was presented to the council on Dec. 17.

The Gateway obtained the pages last week under a public records request.

‘Fails to lead by example’

Most of the newly released comments named Mayor Kuhn specifically. Among 496 comments, the mayor was mentioned 481 times, only twice positively.

“The mayor of this city fails to lead by example and displays a autocratic leadership style,” wrote a police officer. “Fear, shame, guilt is the mayor’s main weapon.”

“The mayor has harassed employees, yelled at them, retaliated against employees, thrown temper tantrums, and lied on many occasions,” said a Public Works employee.

The City Council authorized the survey — over the vehement objections of Mayor Kuhn — after an Aug. 6 article in The Gateway outlined complaints about the mayor’s behavior from employees who said he yelled at and berated them.

More than 20 employees, including department heads and supervisors, have quit or retired since Kuhn, a former jeweler, became mayor in 2017.

Ninety-eight of the city’s 110 employees took the online survey after being promised anonymity.

Among the results: 72 percent of employees said leadership did not treat them with respect, 68 percent said their expertise was not sought out or valued, and about a third said they were not planning to stay more than a year or two more.

‘Terrible trio’

Mayor Kuhn took the brunt of the criticism. But City Administrator Bob Larson and Human Resources Director Kameil Borders took their lumps, too, and were often mentioned with Kuhn. One employee called them “the terrible trio.”

“It’s not just one of them, it’s ALL three,” wrote an employee in Public Works.

“I’d like to see Kamiel Borders, Mayor Kuhn, City Administrator Larson replaced and let go,” said a police officer. “They have lost their ability to lead this city. Keeping them in office is prolonging the problem and there is nothing they can do to gain respect and trust. It’s permanently broken. You change the leadership, and you will fix the problems.”

All three administrators were asked for their response. Larson and Borders did not reply. Kuhn said he “takes seriously” the issues that arose in the survey, but he needed more time to read all the comments.

A reading of all 496 comments surfaces several main themes: The behavior of the mayor, whom many consider a bully and a boor out of his intellectual depth; the inefficiency caused by what employees see as his constant micromanagement; and the fear of being verbally assailed by the mayor or “written up” by Borders for disagreeing with him.

“It is easy to anger the mayor and nearly impossible to please him,” one staff employee wrote.

Said another, “I avoid any and all encounters with Mayor Kuhn, I have seen him loudly and publicly berate an employee firsthand. I avoid contact with him at all cost in an effort to steer clear of his temper tantrums and out of his crosshairs.”

Favorable comments

Employees came back again and again to what they saw as the mayor’s lack of leadership skills. Several noted that he seems to sincerely care for Gig Harbor, but lacks the skills to manage a complex organization.

“I think the mayor has good intentions and the best interest of Gig Harbor in his head, but he does not have the knowledge, intelligence, or ability to listen to his staff,” one employee wrote. “This is a very bad combination. He also treats employees with disrespect (especially females).”

“The mayor does a good job for the community, but does not have the skills to be a leader,” said another employee. “He is suspicious, disrespectful, controlling, and does not seem to care about the employees. And he is shielded by the HR director. They protect each other at the expense of good employees.”

Two comments could be considered favorable to the administration.

“I feel the mayor is finally settling into his role and allowing directors the flexibility to do their jobs,” wrote a City Hall worker. “We have been through a lot over the past few years and I feel like Bob (Larson) has helped out the mayor a lot and we are going the right way.

Another dismissed the complaints of colleagues as “lies and gossip.”

“The employees can be very self-centered and forget that the citizens pay our wages/benefits,” that person wrote.

Larson raised hopes

Employees were ambivalent about City Administrator Bob Larson, hired in November 2019.

“The city administrator tries his best and is very professional and kind,” wrote one employee, “But its obvious that if he wants to keep his job, he had better bend backwards to stay in the good graces of the mayor. I would never want to be in his shoes, ever.”

A Public Works employee wrote: “We were praying when (Larson) was finally hired that he would be the change the city needed... After two months, it became apparent that he was nothing but the mayor’s puppet ... He seemed to try for a while, but he gave up and sided with the mayor in all his decisions instead of listening to the professionals.”

“We had such high hopes When Mr. Larson came on board,” said a City Hall employee. “We thought he may be our savior... But it only lasted a few months and you could watch it in meetings. Mr. Larson could not speak out of turn and he just became a puppet to the mayor.”

Another wrote cynically, “Bob Larson is padding his pension.”

Employees were not as ambivalent about Kameil Borders, the human resources director. One called her “the axe-wielding right hand and apologist of mayor Kuhn.” A complaint repeated in may comments was that she was hard to reach when employees had problems, seldom returning calls or emails for help.

Micromanagement

Micromanagement was another recurring theme. Employees complained that supervisors with expertise have been stripped of decision-making authority.

Mayor Kuhn “micromanages my department with no working knowledge of the inner workings of the operation,” said a Public Works employee. “He will catch soundbites and talks as if he knows all about it ... He bypasses or dismisses my supervisor, a professional engineer.”

Employees expressed concern about the number of colleagues leaving the city, and complained of the heavy work load caused by long delays in hiring replacements.

“There is too much to do with everything coming at the last minute and done in a panic,” said another worker. “We are in crisis mode all the time with no breaks to catch up on routine tasks.”

Another recurring theme was the lack of training, especially in the police department. Officers said the mayor has banned any out-of-town training that involves an overnight motel stay, because he sees it as “an excuse to party.”

YouTube videos

“Our current training program is nothing but YouTube videos and the shooting range,” wrote a police officer. “This is not how you train a effective police force. This is how your city gets lawsuits from costly mistakes in the field because the officer was ill-prepared and untrained.”

One employee in Community Development wrote that they opted to pay $300 for a professional certification out of their own pocket, after the city refused to pay $60 it would have cost for the course.

Many employees were sore about not getting raises they had been recommended for by their supervisors, and resentful of larger raises given to administrators.

One employee detailed how each of his four superiors had whittled down his raise from 5 to 3 percent, with “the city administrator taking the final bite.”

“I know this is because the Post -It note with their numbers and initials were left on my evaluation,” the employee wrote.

Deferred maintenance

Employees also brought up the threat to the city’s infrastructure from what they see as penny-pinching in maintenance, particularly in the city’s critical water-treatment plant and its system of wells. Police officers complained that their equipment was out of date, especially the computers in the squad cars.

Mayor Kuhn’s budget decisions “look really good on paper because it looks like he’s saving the city money,” said a Public Works employee. “In reality, the deferred maintenance ... will haunt future administrations for years to come” as equipment breaks down and needs overwhelm existing infrastructure.

Wistful regret

There was also an undercurrent of wistfulness and regret for something in the city’s culture employees feel has been lost.

“Most everyone used to give 110 percent,” wrote one city worker. “Now we just do our jobs and keep our head down as to not be his next target. I used to love my job. Now I just look forward to the day when we have a new mayor…”

Reach Kerry Webster at editor@gateline.com