Turmoil Continues For Everett Public Works As Director Davis Dismissed

On Friday Everett’s long-time director of Public Works was dismissed by Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin. City staff was advised of Davis departure in an email. No public notice was provided by the new Mayor.

Hearing the news this afternoon we reached out to City of Everett Public Information Director Meghan Pembroke and received the following on our inquiry via email: (Editor’s note, we appreciate the prompt response on a Saturday)

Hi Lee – Thanks for your call. I’ve provided a statement from Mayor Franklin below. In response to your question, Dave Davis’ last day with the City was Friday, Jan. 5. Paul Kaftanski will serve as interim Public Works director, working closely with the department’s management team.

Statement from Mayor Franklin:

“Over the past several weeks, I’ve met with all of our department directors to learn about their teams and projects and to share my vision and direction for the City. This has also been an opportunity to consider any personnel or organizational changes that I might make in order to successfully carry out the priorities of my administration. I have asked for a full assessment of Public Works to determine how best to structure the department going forward. As I said in my email to the Public Works team yesterday, Dave has made significant contributions and was a valued leader during his time with Everett. His service is greatly appreciated by his team and his colleagues throughout the City, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors.”

Here is the email sent Friday afternoon to city staff by Mayor Franklin
Davis Dismissal Email

On Wednesday Davis was giving a proposal to the Everett City Council regarding plans for relocating the Public Works Department from its current location on Cedar street at Pacific.

Many of the buildings there are unsafe and would not withstand an earthquake.
Davis and his staff have been working on a plan to relocate Public Works for years and in February of last year employees presented a list of concerns over safety directly to the Everett City Council.

During his presentation on Wednesday night Davis was going over options to combine the Public Works Operations with the Motor Vehicle Department and also Transit. An overview of these options had been presented to the General Government committee on December 17th. Davis was interrupted by Council member Scott Murphy who complained that Davis’ presentation lacked the financial detail council needed to consider the six different options being considered.

Mayor Franklin stepped into the discussion at that point saying she has ordered a different plan to be implemented that puts the focus on getting people who are in unsafe buildings out of them as soon as possible. Franklin stated they are looking at bringing portable buildings onto the Cedar property in the short term. She said this would change all of the numbers and that the expected cost of what Davis was talking about would exceed one hundred million dollars.

Council then asked Davis to come to a special meeting on Wednesday to brief them on plans for the city to buy the Snohomish Health District Building on Rucker. Davis mentioned to the council that the steep costs of remodeling the Health District building may outweigh any benefits of purchase. In September the council authorized spending seventy thousand dollars on a study of that building. Now that Davis has been dismissed no word if that meeting will go on or be postponed. We”ll let you know on Monday.