From the inside, Bainbridge Island’s city government is a divisive, dysfunctional organization characterized by weak leadership, inconsistent direction, distrust and defensiveness, and rock-bottom morale.

And while the problems go back for years, the current city council has made matters worse, according to a report from consultant Sandra Davis.

“Today, the greatest discord within the organization is between the city council and the executive office and between council and staff, whereas in 1997 the tension was between management and staff,” Davis wrote in a draft report, released Friday morning.

The report summarizes the results of Davis’ survey of city workers, an effort to update a similar study undertaken in 1997.

The update was called for by the council in January, with several members including Michael Pollock and Debbie Vancil citing ongoing but unspecified management problems in City Hall.

For the study, some 100 of the city’s 135 employees – including elected officials – responded to written surveys or attended informal “brown-bag” discussions. No formal interviews were conducted.

The report notes that the observations are those of the staff and elected officials, but do not incorporate Davis’ own views, if any.

Davis was out of town and unavailable for comment Friday.

The most frequently mentioned problem was “leadership.”

While most respondents rated their supervisors as being helpful and cooperative, half rated overall city management as “poor or very poor” on a variety of management characteristics.

“A number of the members of the city’s leadership team are not perceived as being competent managers and are perceived as disengaged,” Davis wrote in her report.

The report does not identify by name any of the individuals whose performance was questioned.

The respondents also thought relations between various branches of the city government needed improvement.

Three quarters of them said the relations between the council and the executive office – the mayor and city administrator – were poor or very poor, while 77 percent characterized the relations between city staff and the council as poor or very poor.

Morale also was reportedly in the dumps, with 57 percent rating overall city worker morale as poor or very poor, 61 percent saying that they rarely or never feel more optimistic about the city this year than last.

While employees generally had favorable views of their co-workers, 67 percent said overall teamwork in the organization was fair or poor.

Two-thirds labeled the city council as a poor to very poor team player, while one-third applied that characterization to the executive team.

Since the report was commissioned, four top city officials have retired or resigned, including City Engineer Jeff Jensen, Planning Director Stephanie Warren, Administrator Lynn Nordby and Information Technology Manager Amy Hughes.

The latter two cited frustration over ongoing disputes with current council members.

The value of the administrator’s position itself was the subject of a dispute between the council and Mayor Darlene Kordonowy during budgeting last fall, symptomatic of the discord between the executive and council for much of the past 18 months.

Council member Debbie Vancil, who had received second-hand briefings but had not read the report, said she thought the focus on the council was misplaced.

“They’re shooting the messenger,” Vancil said. “These problems that council has been trying to point out are historical, not caused by the council.

“The administration has not been able to recognize that there are management problems, which has frustrated the council.”

Councilman Norm Wooldridge said the organization “has some serious problems, and each problem feeds the other ones.”

But he said the will exists to address the issues, and the report will help further that process.

“There has been a lot of denial going on before,” he said. “Her independent evaluation has helped overcome that, and should move us faster in a positive direction.”

Councilwoman Deborah Vann called the report “pretty much exactly what I expected.”

She said following through on the suggestions, especially mending the rift between the mayor and council, would take commitment from both sides.

Vann was, though, critical of the report’s references to the council as a whole.

“I’m sorry the ones with problems are not identified,” she said. “I don’t think it’s fair that we all got lumped in together.”

Vann said she believes her own relations with city staff members are good, but she would make “a further commitment to being more sensitive – we need to do that, report or no.”

Council chair Christine Rolfes said the report brought up “management issues, some of which we have talked about publicly and some privately.”

One specific recommendation from Davis, bringing in a temporary coordinator to help rebuild frayed relationships, did not appeal to her.

“I’m not real excited about hiring an outside person to co-ordinate,” she said. “I think we can do that internally, and I think the ability to do that is something to look for in a new city administrator.”

Councilman Bill Knobloch declined to comment specifically, saying the report was a draft, and he would wait until the final report was issued.

Michael Pollock and Lois Curtis could not be reached for comment.

The mayor acknowledged that the report was critical of her leadership, among other things.

“The report identified the executive office as the mayor and the city administrator, so I can’t avoid the fact that it is talking about me,” Kordonowy said.

She said strong leadership will be one of the attributes she seeks out in naming a replacement for Nordby, who will retire effective July 31.

Nordby was out of the office Friday.

Kordonowy said the administrative leadership has been holding monthly training sessions with a consultant for the past year, which she believes has yielded benefits.

“That has given us a head start in addressing some of these issues,” she said.

Kordonowy said she has not had a chance to ask Davis how the Bainbridge results compare to survey responses from other organizations, but believes that is an important question.

“We need to talk to Sandra, look at the report, and pick out areas where we can make a difference,” she said.

——-

***Jensen resigns

City engineer Jeff Jensen resigned this week, citing “a growing sense of frustration in trying to do my best for my community.”

A resignation letter to Public Works Director Randy Witt did not elaborate on the source of that frustration, but Jensen said he would submit “a more thorough commentary” before his departure.

Jensen left was on vacation this week and could not be reached for further comment.

Jensen will work through July 11; in September, he will take a supervising engineer position with the Water Engineering Division of Seattle Public Utilities, where he worked before joining the city nine years ago.