Daily Sitka Sentinel

Two Senior Staffers Quit Jobs at City Hall

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Two department heads in the city government have resigned, City Administrator Keith Brady reports.
    Maegan Bosak, community affairs director who has been on the city staff for six years, announced her resignation Wednesday, to take a job at SEARHC.
    Also last week, Matthew Ione, who has been human resources director the past three months, gave notice Monday that he will be leaving, citing a lack of unity in the city’s leadership.
    Brady said both of the high-level staff members made important contributions to the city and will be missed.
    “Both will be a loss to our staff and our organization,” Brady said Friday. “Even though I reluctantly accepted their resignations, I’m happy for both of them.”
    The city is advertising for a new HR director, but Brady is holding off on advertising for Bosak’s replacement.
    The Assembly approved a hiring freeze earlier this spring, and at the last meeting appointed a subcommittee of three Assembly members to review positions as they came open. The subcommittee will make recommendations to the Assembly as to whether the positions should be filled or not.
    The planning director position also is open, and Assembly members twice rejected the recommendation of a hiring committee – including Brady and Ione – objecting to the salary that was being offered.
    Bosak, who will be on maternity leave through June 30, will begin July 1 as marketing and communications director for the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium. The position was based in Juneau but will now be based in Sitka, at Bosak’s request.
    Bosak was originally hired as Planner I before moving on to planning director, and for the past three years she has been in charge of public and government relations for the city.
    As the city’s public information officer she made announcements and coordinated information during such emergencies as tsunami warnings, and the period following the 2015 landslides. She also coordinated lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., and Juneau, and wrote resolutions and letters in response to actions at the state and federal levels.
    Bosak said she also functioned as an ombudsman, helping the public connect with the right departments when they had questions or wanted something done. She also performed consistency reviews for the city’s Coastal Management Plan, and oversaw long-term planning for the city.
    As for her new job, Bosak said, “I was offered a new opportunity and I’m excited to jump into a new industry. Health care is one of Southeast’s top industries and SEARHC is a leader. I’ve had great health care experiences in the birth of my new daughter and I’m happy to be joining that team.”

Maegan Bosak. (Sentinel Photo)

    Brady said he’s held off on advertising Bosak’s job because he’s not sure he would get approval from the current Assembly.
    “The general feeling I’ve gotten from some Assembly members is that position is not important, which I highly disagree with,” he said. He said if the position is not approved, he will need to figure out how to cover the duties for which she was responsible.
    Brady said Ione was able to accomplish quite a bit during his relatively short tenure as HR director, including “adding stability to staff and to management.”
    Ione’s accomplishments included internal investigations into staff complaints, updating the personnel policy and looking into improving staff communications.
    Ione, a member of Mt. Edgecumbe High School Class of 1990, was senior human resources director in Anchorage at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, and a SEARHC vice president before joining the city staff. He said he and his wife will be looking for work outside of Sitka.
    He cited his reasons for leaving as “one, the fiscal uncertainty of Sitka, and two, the multiple and competing interests resulting in uncertain direction for city leadership.” His last day will be at the end of June.
    “Difficulty is not an issue for me,” he said today. “It’s the uncertainty in where the city is going. I don’t know if we have an answer. Depending on who you ask will determine the answer. That’s politics, I guess, but the uncertainty doesn’t help build a stable and satisfied workforce.”

Matt Ione (Sentinel Photo)

    He added, “As an HR director you try to get a pulse on the workforce, and it’s tough for people right now with all the different interests and challenges.”
    Asked for words of advice to any incoming HR director at this time, Ione said he would tell them to “be prepared for some uncertainty.”
    “I would like to think that there would be more of a defined vision of where the city wants to go,” Ione said. “I would like to think there will be a unified vision – hopefully we will get there. There is absolute uncertainty right now which is OK if you can work through it. ... There’s passionate employees who want to do good and I think that needs to be recognized. We have a great workforce.”
    Mayor Gary Paxton said he was disappointed by the news.
    “It’s alarming because two talented department heads are going to leave,” he said. “I’m especially concerned about losing Matt from HR, a Mt. Edgecumbe High School grad, with good experience. He’s exactly the kind of guy we need in HR. It’s troubling he didn’t feel happy in his job in Sitka.”