Two Bluffton residents received no answer to their question, “Why did the village get rid of its administrator?”

The question was posed to Mayor Judy Augsburger during the Feb. 13 Bluffton council meeting. It concerned the Jan. 23 council termination of Jamie Mehaffie as village administrator. He held the position for 13 years.

During the audience participation segment of the meeting Joe Schorer and Mitch Giesige each raised the question to the mayor.

On Monday evening, Augburger’s reply was: “Basically, I have no comment. It’s a personnel matter and I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

Giesige asked where the village stands with objective job reviews. He followed with the question of how do citizens request to see Mehaffie’s last five performance evaluations?

Steven Chamberlain, village solicitor, told Giesige that all one needs to do it to make a request to see the information.

Giesige said he believed that performance evaluations should be based upon budgets and scheduled performances and must be objective not subjective. “This action influences the entire village,” he said.

The mayor replied that the village is working on personal performance reviews.

Schorer said that taxpayers deserve an answer to Mehaffie’s termination. He asked if the village has plans to hire a replacement.

The mayor said that the village will advertise for a replacement, but does not have a deadline for it at the moment.

Background
At the conclusion of the Jan. 23 council meeting and following an executive session, Mehaffie’s employment was recommended by the mayor to be terminated effective immediately.

The vote to terminate was 4-2 with Roger Warren, Richard Johnson, Ralph Miller and Sean Burrell voting for termination. Phill Talavinia and Joe Sehlhorst voted against termination.

Council’s Jan. 23 minutes state: “Mr. Sehlhorst asked that it be noted that he feels evaluations should be completed and improvement in job performance seen before termination is considered. Mr. Talavinia echoed these sentiments.