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City council votes to give chief clerk and deputy Clerk their jobs back; they agree not to seek back pay . Jonathan Nelson The Chronicle LaVerne Haslett and Christy McNelly will no longer see the word “former” placed before their job titles following Tuesday night’s Napavme City Council meeting. According to Diana Moller, an Olympia attorney representing the two women in their $1 million claim filed against the city in Sep tember, the city council voted to reinstate Haslett as the city’s chief clerk and McNelly as the deputy city clerk as well as share $31,000 in damages. By reaching the agreement, Haslett said she and McNelly won't seek back pay for the year and half they were not working for the city. Haslett resumed her duties Wednesday and McNelly is scheduled to return within two weeks. Moller’s press release stat ed. ‘It's not really hard to put this behind me,” Haslett said in refer ence to her return to work. “A good part of the administration is new and I appreciate their efforts to resolve this.” The women and city ways in July 1994 when former Mayor Ruby Guido initially sus pended them and then fired them for reasons that were never pub licly revealed. In the claim filed with the city, the women claim they were fired in retaliation for whistleblower complaints against city personnel. The press release by Moller in dicates those complaints were of improper governmental actions and abuse of authority with the city as well as police misconduct. But Moller failed to provide specific examples of improper governmental actions or police misconduct and was unavailable for comment. Haslett and McNelly declined to go into details of their com plaints. “In my agreement with the city this is a new day,” Haslett said. “I can’t talk about it because it was part of the agreement,” Mc Nelly said. Moller says her clients were prepared to file a lawsuit if an agreement wasn’t reached at Tuesday's meeting. Moller says she told Mayor Du ane E. Elwood, “The amount of back pay owed to Mrs. Haslett and Mrs. McNelly will continue to accrue until this case is settled or until it goes to trial and a ver dict is reached. If the case does not go to trial for another year and my clients prevail in court, the city of Napavine will have to pay the claimants in excess of $100,000 in back wages directly out of the city’s coffers.” Moller said the Association of Washington Cities, which insures Napavine and many other cities, will not cover back wages but will cover most of the other damages. Elwood agreed the association doesn’t pay back wages, but said the city handled the settlement agreement and will pay the entire $31,000 in damages. “We're mending a lot of fences,” he said. Jim McDonald, insurance ser vice manager with the associa tion, said his office advised the city not to pay the damages. “We thought they did every thing properly,” he said. McDonald acknowledged the back pay issue probably weighed heavily in the city’s decision. “That's their call to make,” he said. The husbands of both clerks, Rob McNelly and Jim Haslett, were elected to the council in No vember. Moller said they were at the meeting when the settlement was reached, but did not vote on the matter.
Newspaper Details
Centralia Chronicle
Centralia, Washington, US
Thu, Jan 19, 1995
Page 3
Full Page
Clipped by
Penny P.
USA 20 Aug 2026
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