Current Mattawa mayor asked former mayor to resign

MATTAWA — Current Mattawa Mayor Maggie Celaya appears to have asked former Mattawa mayor, Scott Hyndman, to resign.

In a Nov. 6 email obtained by the Columbia Basin Herald, then-council member Celaya accused Hyndman of allowing staff to create conflicts, having a lack of respect for the CARES Act Subcommittee, a lack of leadership in dealing with staff, violating executive session rules, not performing city department head performance reviews, failing to resolve issues and creating division between staff and council.

“I ask that if you cannot handle these issues, then you step down from your position as mayor,” Celaya wrote. “Your lack of leadership skills is causing division and conflict that has gone too far. Know that my frustrations I am sharing here, will be shared with council at our next council meeting. I am asking that action be taken immediately to address and put an end to these issues.”

Celaya did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment on the email.

Hyndman resigned as mayor of Mattawa Nov. 22, 2020. According to Hyndman, he planned to resign after the sewer treatment plant project was complete, but he accelerated his resignation due to the pressure from Celaya.

“I was tired of putting up with her (attitude),” Hyndman said. “My health was suffering, I wasn’t sleeping.”

Hyndman said one of his frustrations was he was being stripped of his mayoral powers, including the ability to vote on the CARES Act Subcommittee. The CARES Act Subcommittee consists of three council members and, as needed, other city staff, who oversee the distribution of federal funds given to the city for COVID-19 relief. During Hyndman’s time as mayor, the council members on the committee were Celaya, Wendy Lopez and Sun Hwang. Hyndman said he was “kicked off” and stripped of his vote in the committee. As far as he knows, Celaya still is on the committee and has the ability to vote.

“In my opinion, that’s wrong,” Hyndman said. “If the mayor wasn’t allowed to vote before, she shouldn’t be allowed to vote now.”

The Herald couldn’t confirm if Celaya attends the meetings or has voting privileges. Hwang said he is no longer on the CARES Act Subcommittee and he didn’t remember why Hyndman’s ability to vote was taken away. Lopez did not respond to questions from the Herald.

Hyndman also said while he was mayor, members of the CARES Act Subcommittee would have meetings before the actual subcommittee meeting. He said the meeting information was documented in the city’s virtual meeting administrator, which is how he found out unscheduled city meetings were happening. Hwang denied any pre-meetings were held. The Herald is waiting for the meeting records from the city of Mattawa to confirm the meetings and who participated in them.

Another difference of opinion between the current and former mayors regards the performance of Mattawa Police Chief Joe Harris. Hyndman gave Harris good reviews. Celaya in her email criticized Harris multiple times about what she perceived to be misconduct in CARES Act money.

“This is a difficult job for us council members,” Celaya wrote in reference to the CARES Act Subcommittee. “We have been disrespected on many occasions by you and Chief Harris. Last night (Nov. 5, 2020), I witnessed that our job in the city’s CARES Act Subcommittee is not respected by council and mayor.”

Hyndman said while he and Harris had “butted heads before,” he believes in having a good police department. He said some of Celaya’s accusations in her email were in regard to the police department

“Joe has a tendency to speak his piece,” Hyndman said. “I understand that. He is defending his department.”

One of the charges leveled at Hyndman was he hadn’t been doing performance evaluations of staff.

“I hadn’t done evaluations on police, public works or clerk’s office for two years,” Hyndman said. “My opinion for running the city is that if you do your job, you’re doing fine.”

Hyndman said during those two years, the council hadn’t asked for the evaluations. However when they did ask for them, he did them.

“I gave the chief a good review, I gave Anabel an excellent report and I told Juan that he needed to pick up this game,” Hyndman said. “There are people that work there (Mattawa City Hall) that do a good job. Some people don’t.”

In his resignation letter, Hyndman said Mattawa has “a great team of employees.”

“The Police Department has done a tremendous job over the last 5+ years to build the department and work with the community,” Hyndman wrote. “Public works is coming along nicely, and the clerk’s office has just finished their audit with flying colors.”

Also in his letter, Hyndman recommended the city hire an administrator to take over the day-to-day running of the city. He said the city is getting harder to run for a mayor who has another job. Hyndman cited the new developments coming into the area as one of the reasons for this hardship.

In the end, Hyndman said he resigned because he couldn’t take any more problems with the city council.

“I can only take so much,” Hyndman said. “They pushed me to the edge. It’s not worth my health.”

Celaya did not respond to email, text and phone calls, for comment. The Herald also reached out to Hwang and Lopez, both members of the CARES Act Subcommittee at the time of Celaya’s email. Lopez asked questions be sent to her city email address, but did not respond when questions were sent. When asked about the email Celaya sent Hyndman, Hwang said he was unable to comment on it because it had been talked about during an executive session.