McKnight levels charges after vacating city seat

Sarah McKnight, a member of the Colfax City council for 22 months, started off Tuesday night’s meeting by resigning her seat. McKnight got up from her seat at the council table, walked around to the opposite side of the room to face the council and leveled charges against Mayor Todd Vanek and Councilman Jim Kackman.

Among those seated at the council table were three newly-elected members of the council who were waiting to be sworn into office.

McKnight said she serves on five different boards and when she decided to cut back it wasn’t too difficult to decide to drop city council seat.

She said she felt there was not a lot of leadership in city hall.

“We’re supposed to be a team here,” she commented, noting that was not the case.

McKnight in a written statement noted she has observed employees who are disgruntled and her concerns about their work environment are often ignored.

“Sadly, the mayor’s need to control other human beings has become a greater priority than leading the city into a positive thriving state,” she wrote in a letter about her decision to depart.

One of her main objections was the course of action taken by Vanek and Kackman after she had written a letter to city hall about her concerns while working with an unnamed city staffer.

McKnight is managing director of Southeast Washington Economic Development Association for Whitman County.

She said the mayor and Kackman, instead of addressing her concerns, took the letter across the street to the courthouse and met with Commissioner Dean Kinzer who serves on the SEWEDA board of directors.

McKnight in a written statement said she viewed the response by Vanek and Kackman as a move to have her reprimanded by SEWEDA officials.

In her statement she described her SEWEDA position as her “day job.”

McKnight said, according to a legal consultant from Municipal Research and Services Center, Vanek and Kackman had committed liability interference.

Near the end of her exit talk, McKnight offered to assist the three new council members in the event they encounter the same problems she did with city service.

As she became more intense she began to include some profane comments in her talk, and that drew a caution from Vanek.

After McKnight departed, Kackman said he viewed McKnight’s letter to city hall as a potential conflict of interest between her SEWEDA position and her city council position and that led to the meeting with Kinzer.

Kackman described McKnight’s letter to the city as having a lot of accusations and not many facts.

McKnight, who was appointed to the council to fill a seat vacated by Steve Holberg, was elected to a new term by Colfax voters in November.

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting the council requested the city to immediately begin action to fill the vacated seat.