POULSBO — Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson said she shared with city employees information about a former city clerk’s resignation to quell rumors floating around City Hall about the circumstances regarding the clerk’s departure. That has the former clerk’s husband crying foul, saying information about his wife’s resignation is confidential.

“She’s really upset,” Andrew Stephens said of his wife, Nicole, Jan. 15, calling the sharing of information related to her resignation “illegal.”

Nicole Stephens initially cited job stress as the reason for stepping down Nov. 13. “The late meetings were taking a toll on me,” she told the Herald Nov. 10. “I would say [I worked] between 50 and 60 hours a week.”

According to city documents obtained by the Herald, Stephens resigned after the city’s HR director and mayor learned she had falsified a conference attendance report, her timecard and related expense claim. According to Erickson, Stephens was given the option of resigning in lieu of being fired, and did so.

“I made errors in judgment and regret that these errors caused you to lose the trust you placed in me,” Stephens wrote in her resignation letter, dated Nov. 9. She received all cash-outs and benefits due to her, was paid for the entire pay period, and her health insurance continued through Dec. 31.

Erickson said she, city HR manager Deanna Kingery and legal counsel are auditing records and email archives maintained during Stephens’ tenure. “We are still digging through things because she was in a position of such high trust and had access to all [city] records and documents.”

According to the city’s website, the City Clerk’s Office is responsible for “processing all public records requests, ordinances, resolutions, legal publications, contracts/agreements, and real property documents. Other functions include preparing and monitoring the Legislative and Clerk budgets, conducting the census for newly annexed areas as well as coordinating the annual census requirements, maintaining the city’s records and ensuring the preservation of essential documents.”

Stephens, a Belfair resident, graduated from Washington State University’s Northwest Clerks Institute and was a certified municipal clerk. She got her start in local government in March 2007 as an administrative assistant in the Port Orchard City Clerk’s office. Stephens became deputy city clerk of Poulsbo in July 2008, and city clerk in October 2014.

After she resigned, she told the Herald she “absolutely loved” the job. “Dealing with the public, the records, giving that transparency to government is what I enjoyed the most,” Stephens said. “I hope to stay somewhat involved [in local government].”

Conference attendance claims
On Nov. 3, Stephens submitted a time card that indicated she attended the fall conference of the Washington Association of Public Records Officers Oct. 21-23 in Tacoma, according to city documents obtained by the Herald. She submitted a certificate of attendance indicating she had participated in eight sessions over two days at the conference, and submitted a claim for reimbursement for $100.85 for mileage and bridge toll.

Stephens also indicated she attended the Olympic Region Municipal Clerks Association meeting on Oct. 29 in Sequim. (In a snapshot of Stephens’ desktop calendar for Oct. 29, Stephens put the Sequim meeting as being in Shelton.)

According to city documents, Erickson thought the Tacoma conference was only one day, so Kingery checked. In an email to Kingery, Emily Kaseberg of the Washington Association of Public Records Officers wrote that the conference was a one-day event, that “it would not be possible for an individual to attend every session at the conference,” and that the certificate of attendance Stephens submitted “has been altered.”

Regarding the Sequim conference, Kingery wrote in her notes, the deputy city clerk of Sequim told her “Nicole didn’t attend the [Olympic Region Municipal Clerks Association] meeting.” Kingery wrote in her notes that the deputy city clerk told her “she was sad about this potential problem because if effected a friend’s relationship with her employer.”

In a phone interview Jan. 15, Stephens told the Herald “It was a disagreement … It was a misunderstanding,” and that she was “at business meetings and working from home” on the dates indicated on her time card. “I had a conference and state organization meeting with colleagues, and then I worked from home like I’ve done many times in the past.”

Regarding the conference in Tacoma, she said she was “in Tacoma both days” – an account history of her Good To Go fare card shows it was used for bridge toll on Oct. 21 at 11:56 a.m. and Oct. 23 at 5:05 a.m. — but said “it was a one-day conference.”

— Herald reporter Sophie Bonomi contributed to this report