City administrator offers no public comment amid allegations over alleged errors, workplace dysfunction

Shady Cove Mayor Jon Ball and City Council President Kathryn Nuckles resigned during a special City Council session last Tuesday, citing what they claimed was ongoing dysfunction at City Hall and recent, alleged hostilities from City Administrator Michele Parry.

Ball, during the special session, said he called the meeting to ask council members “to start discussing what we could do about our City Hall staff.”

Instead, Ball announced his resignation, effective immediately, and detailed a series of events that found Ball and Nuckles, he said, both working full-time to help manage City Hall and find and correct constant, serious and costly errors allegedly being made by City Hall employees.

Ball and Nuckles said this week that scheduling of the special meeting prompted threatening text messages from Parry, who alleged hostile treatment by Ball and, after the meeting was announced, reported two city employees had filed grievances due to a hostile work environment and said legal action could be taken against Ball unless he resigned.

Ball opened the special meeting by reading a thank you note received from Parry days prior to calling for the special meeting. The note read, “Thank you for being my steady hand, sharp mind and trusted sounding board. You show up every time, in every way and I truly don’t know what I would do without you. You help me hold all of the pieces of the city together and I am endlessly grateful.”

After reading the note, which included a heart and smiley face, Ball told Parry, “Yes, I do all of those things and I do about 100 others that a Mayor is not supposed to have to do. And I am tired. And I am fatigued.”

Ball then resigned, effective July 1, noting, “due to the incompetence of our current city administrator and the dysfunctional staff she holds around her.”

Calls to Shady Cove City Hall were not answered Monday, although an email sent to Parry on Tuesday morning yielded a written statement, with Parry saying, “At this time, the City of Shady Cove will not be issuing any public comment regarding recent matters. An official statement will be released when the City deems it appropriate and in the best interest of the public. We remain committed to transparency and due process, and we appreciate your patience and understanding as we proceed with the appropriate deliberation.”

Ball said the city was now a “better place” than it had been before he and other council members came aboard but that progress had “stalled.” He warned remaining council members, “Whoever signs the checks, please make sure the amounts are correct and the invoices are legit”

After an intermission, Nuckles reconvened and echoed similar concerns before offering her own emotional resignation. Nuckles, who said she ran for office to serve alongside Ball, said she too received a thank you card from Parry.

Nuckles took issue with receiving a thank you card from Parry, expressing gratitude for Nuckles “always having her back,” then receiving texts Nuckles said were “quite threatening,” claiming alleged abuse by the mayor that had never been previously disclosed.

Nuckles said the current council had “worked tirelessly” and dug the city “out of a very big hole created by the previous administration,” including restoring damaged relationships with other regional entities and remedying years of incomplete financial documents.

Knuckles said the council could continue with just three members but that, “quite frankly, the wind has left my sails.”

“Jon was a great mayor. I think he accomplished more than most, if not all, of his predecessors, and he left behind some giant empty shoes that I have no desire or the ability to fill,” she said.

“I have nothing left to give this city. I’m not doing double duty and it takes two people working full-time to keep this city even part way on track.”

Nuckles told the Rogue Valley Times on Tuesday that she believed allegations of hostility arose only after the announcement of plans to restructure and improve things at City Hall.

“If there had been issues, a professional person would have brought it up. You don’t send these kind of gooey sweet thank you cards out while you’re crafting a file behind the scenes of supposed hostilities. … I reprimanded her in the beginning and we had serious trust issues, because she was being deceitful. If you can’t tell someone they’re not doing a good job — and she is interpreting that as berating — how can you make things better?”

Parry came to the city in May 2024 after serving as the town manager of Lakeview. According to media reports from the time, she was placed on leave in January 2024, for reasons that were not disclosed.

The resignation of Ball and Nuckles leaves the city with just two seated council members — Steve Mitchell and Paige Winfrey.

Applications for appointment to three vacancies — those left by Ball and Nuckles in addition to a previously vacant seat — were posted to the city website with a deadline of 4 p.m. Wednesday, July 9.

Contacted by the Times on Tuesday, Councilor Winfrey declined to comment on the resignations and said updated information would be provided during a Thursday evening meeting.

Ball, who has been vocal in his efforts to establish a municipal drinking water supply for the city, said Tuesday that he was “almost relieved” that a recent push for state funding had been unsuccessful, due to concerns about city staff’s abilities to manage large projects and large amounts of funding.

Nuckles said the city should have heeded concerns raised by Parry’s departure from Lakeview.

“The city needs to wake up and realize that the structure of Shady Cove is wrong and needs to be changed,” Nuckles said.

“One person, namely the city administrator, cannot have absolute power to potentially run the city into the ground. The mayor and I tried to prevent that from happening by carrying the load and catching mistakes caused by city administrator negligence. The city cannot expect future mayors and council members to do the same.”

The agenda for the meeting set for Thursday is posted to the city website.

Meeting audio from the July 1 meeting, during which Ball and Nuckles resigned, is posted online.

Reach reporter Buffy Pollock at 458-488-2029 or buffy.pollock@rv-times.com. Follow her on Twitter @orwritergal.