City Clerk Steele removed in shakeup at Adel City Hall

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Five-year Adel City Clerk Jackie Steele, right, addressed the Adel City Council Tuesday night prior to its vote to remove Steele from her position.

Jackie Steele

The Adel City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to remove five-year Adel city employee Jackie Steele from her position as city clerk because Steele committed two clerical errors and used naughty words in the presence of her fellow city hall workers.

According to the resolution passed by the council, “The city council finds that such removal is based on the following reasons:

a. Unsatisfactory performance, conduct, work habits, overall attitude and demeanor;
b. Disorderly conduct including profane or abusive language, intimidating, threatening or provoking fellow employees or other acts showing lack of respect for other people and property;
c. Incompetence, ineffeciency or negligence in the performance of duty;
d. Failure to be at the worksite at starting time or stopping before quitting time.”

Prior to the council’s vote, Steele addressed the city leaders during the open-forum portion of the meeting. She said she was “confused as to why I’m being considered for termination,” and she questioned the reasons for her removal.

“I really didn’t think that the council would even consider termination for me just because of two unpaid bills and a few cuss words,” Steele said. “Even though I’ve been here five years and have never had any previous write ups or issues, and I’ve had excellent job-performance reviews, the two that I’ve had in the five years I’ve been here.”

Steele said the “write ups” occurred in September, and she acknowledged her “fault regarding the two write ups on the unpaid bills and the outburst, with the cuss words towards Brittany and Anthony.”

Brittany Sandquist
Anthony Brown

Brittany Sandquist is the city’s finance officer and deputy city clerk. She was appointed in December 2016. Anthony Brown was appointed city administrator in October 2015 after serving for several months as the interim administrator.

Steele, who was appointed city clerk in September 2013, said she “was never advised that termination was being considered and that I was only going to be reprimanded or disciplined for the two write ups.”

She said she was assured at the time of the “write ups” that her job was safe.

“I was told at that time that termination was not even being considered,” she told the council. “Then somehow, looking back, all of a sudden two days later I’m being asked to resign or think about resigning, and then the next business day I was put on administrative leave. So I’m kind of wondering what changed from just being disciplined to all of a sudden being considered for termination.”

Steele speculated that her firing was possibly related to her medical condition.

“The only thing I can come up with,” she said, “is that I had taken the two mental-health days before that and basically that I was open with the issues I was having with my medications and trying to get those all under control. I was very open with Brittany in letting her know that.”

Steele also disputed the accuracy of particular provisions in the resolution. She denied ever “intimidating, threatening or provoking fellow employees,” as claimed in the resolution.

“That never happened,” she said, “and that’s painting me out to be a very bad person when people read this.”

She also challenged the resolution’s claim of “incompetence” and “inefficiency” and pointed again to her positive job-performance reviews.

“It doesn’t seem quite right,” she said. “I’ve had a few people contact me since (the resolution) was posted on the website that it’s ‘not very flattering,’ and I do have to disagree with some of the issues that are listed.”

No council members responded to Steele’s statement in open forum. Frank Harding of Wes Des Moines, owner of Brickyard Burgers and Brews in Adel, addressed the council in support of Steele. He said he worked with the city through Steele on a number of events during the two years since he opened his business.

“She made it really easy,” Harding said. “Any questions that I had, she answered those immediately through texts or phone calls. So for me, you know, like she was talking about work efficiency, I mean, she answered them immediately. She was easy to work with.”

Kristine Stone

Adel City Attorney Kristine Stone told the council the terms of the resolution were drawn from the Adel employees handbook.

“The specific language of the resultion is taken from the city handbook,” Steele said. “Those a, b, c and d are provisions from the personnel handbook. These were at the recommendation of staff based on factors which staff believed warranted council’s consideration.”

The council was “free to amend any of those terms,” said Stone, an associate attorney with the Des Moines-based Ahlers and Cooney law firm. She was hired in June as the city’s legal counsel after the death in February of longtime Adel City Attorney John O. Reich.

Adel Mayor Jim Peters invited the council to make introductory remarks or discuss the resolution before it was moved by Rob Christensen and seconded by Shirley McAdon. Peters repeated his invitation after the motion was on the table.

“I’m trying to give the council an opportunity if they want to comment about the contents of the resolution,” Peters said. “I’d invite you to do that or have any discussion, and if not, we’ll vote on the motion.”

The council preserved an unbroken silence until the roll-call vote was taken. Voting aye were council members Christensen, McAdon, Dan Miller, Jodi Selby and Bob Ockerman.

Speaking outside the meeting, Steele’s attorney, Emily McCarty of the West Des Moines law firm of Timmer and Judkins, said legal options remain open to her client, “and Jackie and I are going to spend some time visiting about those. I really can’t comment about it any more than that as we might have some pending litigation on the horizon.”

Following Steele’s disappointment as city clerk, the council unanimously approved the appointment of Sandquist as interim city clerk.

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