The Battle Ground City Council unexpectedly fired its top administrator Wednesday night.

The council did not publicly give a reason at the special meeting, but records obtained by OPB show that shortly before a split vote to terminate City Manager Kris Swanson, councilors reviewed complaints about her from two city police lieutenants.

Swanson’s abrupt firing is just the latest controversy to dominate Battle Ground city politics in recent months, and it raised red flags for several councilors and members of the public who spoke at the meeting. They have questioned the motivations behind the firing and how much of the process was planned out of public view, a possible violation of Washington state’s Open Meetings Act.

The two complaints against Swanson sent to Mayor Eric Overholser describe accounts of the police officers feeling intimidated by the city manager after she called one of them into her office, allegedly to discuss their participation in a separate investigation about her.

On Monday, Swanson had a positive performance review signed by the council, with a pay raise, she said. On Tuesday, she was copied on an email notifying her that she could be fired the next day. During the last-minute public meeting that followed, the council terminated Swanson in a 4-3 vote, despite more than a dozen community members and three councilors expressing their support for her.

“It was a complete surprise,” Swanson said in an interview with OPB.

The meeting was planned so quickly that Councilor Shane Bowman had to interrupt a vacation and drive six hours from Central Washington to Battle Ground to attend in person, he said.

“There’s a proper process for this, and we did not follow that process,” Bowman, who voted against firing Swanson, said Wednesday.

In a statement sent to OPB, Mayor Overholser said “The City Council exercised its authority,” under a provision of Swanson’s employment agreement. Overholser declined an interview request.

No councilors who voted to remove Swanson gave an explanation during the public meeting.

“In 49 years, I have seen the best of times in our city, and I’ve seen the worst of times,” Ed Staton, a local pastor, told the council during a public comment period. “Sadly, in the last several months, I’ve seen things that I’ve never seen before. And it hurts me to see that.”

The city manager’s firing follows community protests over a string of controversial council proclamations aimed at supporting the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, condemning “Antifa-related violence” and promoting “traditional nuclear families,” a measure announced during Pride month. At a regular council meeting Monday, officials voted to add a prayer invocation to the beginning of meetings, sparking protests from some residents.

Swanson was fired from an earlier stint as Longview’s city manager under similar circumstances in 2023. The way that city council handled the process ultimately cost Longview over $500,000 in settlements, staffing fees, and legal costs, plus another $80,000 settlement, after residents mounted a yearslong legal battle alleging violations of a state transparency law, according to the Longview Daily News.

Code enforcement questions lead to complaints

Battle Ground hired Swanson in 2024. A report from Tumwater-based Sound Workplace Investigations shows that in May, she questioned whether two city community services officers were “padding” the number of parking, animal control and code enforcement complaints they responded to.

Her inquiries led to a complaint from police department staff, alleging concerns about the city manager’s handling of a code enforcement case. The city hired Sound Workplace Investigations to look into the allegations. The firm cleared Swanson of wrongdoing in June.

Last month, the two Battle Ground police lieutenants who were interviewed in that investigation sent the mayor letters alleging they feared retaliation from Swanson after one of them had a conversation with her.

Lts. Jim Keller and Jason Perdue described occasions when they were asked to serve as acting police chiefs for the department while Chief Dennis Flynn was out of the office.

In his July 30 letter, Perdue described an “uncomfortable” exchange with Swanson.

“I believed this meeting was inappropriate because an executive who had been the subject of an independent investigation privately confronted a subordinate employee who had participated as a witness.”

In the second letter, Keller wrote that hearing his colleague’s experience increased his stress levels “from the uncertainty surrounding the security of my employment,” and that as a result he declined to serve as acting police chief because of “the expectation that she will also confront me,” Keller wrote.

The letters describe no specific examples of retaliation from Swanson, who declined to comment about them. Perdue described feeling that the city manager doubted his “honesty and integrity” because of his testimony.

“The overall sentiment was that I had not been honest in the investigation and that she was disappointed in me,” Perdue wrote.

A ‘surprise’ firing

Former City Manager Swanson was fired “without cause,” according to the resolution that councilors passed on Wednesday night.

At-will employees can be fired without any cause or reason, according to the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries. Examples of being fired for “cause” include “incompetency, dishonesty, mental unfitness or felony conviction,” according to the Municipal Research and Services Center, a nonprofit that provides legal advice to Washington state cities.

The Battle Ground termination resolution states that Swanson would be paid 12 months salary, plus compensation to match her lost benefits. In Wednesday’s meeting, Bowman said this equated to approximately $315,000.

However, the existence of the two letters from Lieutenants Perdue and Keller call into question whether Swanson was in fact fired “without cause,” Bowman said.

The councilor also questioned during Wednesday’s meeting whether the other four members of the council violated the Washington State Open Meetings Act by coordinating a vote to remove Swanson ahead of time.

“I’ve been a mayor. I’ve been on a city council for 15 years,” Bowman said. “Never would I have thought ‘I’m just going to call a meeting to fire the city manager without cause and see if I can get three other votes.’”

The notice for the public meeting happened in just 24 hours, Bowman noted.

“A meeting that I believe was discussed amongst councilmembers to get to the point that we are here. It was a surprise to some of us, I’m sure,” he said. “It was definitely a surprise to me.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/08/07/battle-ground-city-manager-firing/