by Christy Solo – Editor
As reported in this week’s article on the March 5 Shady Cove City Council Meeting, a full one-quarter of the meeting was dedicated to council comments, and most of those comments centered on the current effort to recall Mayor Lena Richardson.
Richardson and councilors Steve Mitchell and Kathy Nuckles each read pre-written statements during comments. We won’t print the comments in their entirety, but we will print enough for those who did not attend the meeting to get the overall point of each councilor’s message.
Quick facts about the recall process: It is currently only in the petition stage; petitioners have 90 days after the prospective petition is filed to gather the required number of signatures.
If enough signatures are gathered, then the signatures must be verified. Signature verification is completed within 30 days after the petitioners submit the signature sheets or within 120 days of the prospective petition filing date, whichever occurs first.
If enough signatures are verified the official – in this case Richardson – has five days to resign or submit a Statement of Justification.
If Richardson does not resign, the city will hold a recall election no later than 35 days after the end of the five-day resignation period at a cost of approximately $7,500 to the city.
The County will deliver an abstract of the voting results to the City Elections Office within 20 days.
For those not doing the math, the full process – if there is a full process – could take up to 180 days, that’s roughly six months. If we use March 1, 2026 as a starting date (the petition was signed Feb. 23, so +/- a few days) – it could be Aug. 28, 2026 before an abstract is delivered.
That would be two months before the November election where all three appointed seats will be on the ballot.
Before we get into the council comments, we’ll print the full statement by Hank Hohenstein (petitioner) on the recall petition as some comments addressed that directly.
“Lena Richardson’s actions demonstrate a lack of integrity and accountability to Residents of Shady Cove.
“Mayor Richardson failed to support Resident’s requests for elections during the may 2026 Primary, despite language in the City Charter allowing appointed Councilor to serve only until the ‘next available election.’
“We allege Mayor Richardson deliberately delayed Council’s appointment to vacant positions for almost three months. Numerous qualified applicants were bypassed, and Richardson operated without integrity by voting to re-appoint Councilor Kathy Nuckles, who previously resigned twice from her elected position.
“We allege that due to Richardson’s maneuvering, sixty percent of Council (including Richardson) will be unelected appointees for over a full year, with the power to hire Administrators, set budgets, allocate over $2M in City funds, and approve upcoming labor and public safety contracts that are up for renewal in 2026. Since Mayor Richardson’s appointment on July 10th, 2025, we allege that personal biases have taken priority over City business. We estimate tens of thousands of dollars have been needlessly spent on Interim Administrator salaries and legal fees. Richardson’s recent motion to dismiss the Administrator without cause will likely result in severance payments and negated approximately $50,000 in recruitment fees spent in 2024.”
Note: Hohenstein applied for the mayoral appointment along with Richardson in July 2025 and was not appointed. Additionally, Hohenstein was an appointee to council in February 2019 and served out the full 23 months remaining in the seat he was appointed to, bypassing two “next available” elections.
During the March 5, 2025 council meeting the first to give council comments on the recall topic was Richardson then Mitchell and Nuckles.
Richardson’s comments began with a reiteration of the goals she said she would focus on when she was appointed in July:
- Bring the City into compliance with state-mandated audits
- Consistently publish timely, complete and accurate financial statements
- Continue efforts to define a strategic approach to city water
- Update and enforce ordinances
She then detailed what she faced after taking office, including “stalled projects, expired contracts, financial recording errors and a tsunami of complaints being filed by the former administrator against the city and its governing officials.”
She said contractors and others trying to conduct business with the city “could not make progress” for several reasons:
- Breakdown in communications: calls and emails not returned, meetings canceled at the last minute or skipped without notice
- Requests for information and/or actions were frequently not met.
- Lack of organizational structure and management support for effective project completion
- Inconsistent communication and project follow through on project direction and decision-making
Richardson then illustrated the progress council has made on the above goals despite the “headwinds” they faced.
- Completed first full state-mandated audit since 2020. Compiled and recorded a corrective action plan with the State. Continue to work toward completing remaining overdue audits.
- Compiled and published first budget-to-actual financial statement in more than 5 years.
- Participated in independent investigation of former administrator’s claims of misconduct against the City and its officials which resulted in confirmation of no wrongdoing by me or council members.
She then listed new tasks/projects the city must complete over the next few months including hiring a new administrator and negotiating the union agreement.
Richardson then said what she predicted would happen if the recall continued and was successful,” When I was appointed, I planned to serve out the term to which I was appointed but never intended to run for re-election. There is a huge amount of work to complete in the next 10 months. Plus, the whirlwind of judgement, rumors and misinformation has only intensified, and an initiative was filed last week to remove me from office by recall. If this effort is successful, the city will be thrown into complete chaos and dysfunction in a few months, removing all hope that Shady Cove will be able to restore a sound financial foundation.”
Next to give comment was Mitchell. He began by restating why he had voted for Richardson’s appointment.
“We needed someone with prior experience as mayor and accounting experience with filing our annual audit reports to the state.
“Of the four applicants we interviewed for mayor, only Lena had the experience we needed to finalize our prior audits starting in fiscal year 2021, fiscal year 2022, fiscal year 2023.”
Mitchell said he believes only Richardson can “resolve the city’s financial problem.”
Next Mitchell addressed the recall application saying the reasons given for recall in the statement “seem small and petty to me.” He then mentioned the time the recall would take and the cost to the city “at least $7,500.”
Later he also said he’d spoken with Casey Fenstermaker with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission about the “scope of work, responsibilities, things that people can complain about” to the commission.
Fenstermaker referred Mitchell to a page on the OGEC website and his interpretation of that page and his conversation with Fenstermaker was that OGEC’s focus is on public officials using their office for financial gain and that complaints such as those in the recall statement are “small and petty” complaints.
Note: Per their website the OGEC “is an independent state agency that administers and enforces three areas of law, Oregon Government Ethics Law, Lobby Law, and Public Meetings Law.” If or how OGEC weights those categories is unknown.
Mitchell closed saying he does not support the recall as the city needs “to get our financial audits in order by the end of the calendar year and hire a new city administrator.”
Next was Nuckles who focused on former administrator Michele Parry, and how she kept things from council but not from the advocate group behind the recall effort.
Nuckles began with a reminder that in the Aug. 7, 2025 city council meeting Parry “gave a speech essentially telling the Mayor and Council to stay in their lane. In a nutshell, she told Council to focus on policy and keep their noses out of City Hall because that was her domain.”
To a large degree, Parry was not wrong, Nuckles said. The administrator oversees city staff and decisions about city property and contracts. This made it difficult for council to see firsthand the problems between Parry and contractors, etc.
“Private domains are private unless and until wrongdoings are clearly visible from the outside.” Nuckles said, using the analogy of police needing a search warrant to enter a person’s property even if it’s common knowledge crimes are being committed behind closed doors.
Nuckles said the previous council (prior to the resignations of she and former mayor Jon Ball) had seen the “first signs of negligence” and “the former Mayor and I started to have discussions about the City Administrator’s performance review. That is when the wheels started to fall off of the bus, and City Hall started to turn hostile.”
Note: On June 31, 2025 Parry sent texts to Nuckles (public documents sent from city owned phone) citing Ball as her main problem and threatening legal action which she felt would force Ball to resign. Ball then resigned July 1, 2025 believing – that because as stated by Parry – he was the problem if he stepped down issues in city hall could be worked out.
Nuckles pointed out in her comments that such was not the case, “Mayor Richardson joined Council shortly after I left, and instead of City Hall working with her to restore stability, the hostility escalated. It was then that the public started choosing sides creating the ugliness we have today.”
Commenting on the recall effort Nuckles said “the organizers” are laying blame for city issues on Richardson but, “the cancer in city hall was growing before Mayor Richardson took office.”
To illustrate this, Nuckles read aloud the Sept. 3, 2025 resignation letter from former contract city planner Joe Slaughter (hired by Parry). Nuckles also noted the letter had been “withheld from council” by Parry. Nuckles obtained it via a public records request.
Reasons listed by Slaughter for his resignation included lack of organizational structure, inconsistent communication and limited follow-through and continued alterations to the agreed-upon scope of services with no contract changes.
Slaughter also wrote, “Meetings have often been scheduled, canceled and left un-rescheduled. In some cases [Slaughter] were asked to attend meetings in informal or inappropriate settings, such as private residences on weekends.”
Note: The Upper Rogue Independent has also obtained public records documents confirming that the “private residence” in question was that of Natalie and Tom Swendener. N. Swendener is one of three citizens most extensively involved in the recall effort. Additionally, T. Swendener applied for one of the vacant council seats and was not appointed.
Nuckles closed saying the “advocates” for recall “bashed” Richardson once she became aware of issues in city hall and “started digging.”
She said as evidenced by the “inappropriate meeting” at the Swendener’s home the advocates have “known about” and hidden facts about the problems in city hall when they “should have investigated” the issues if they are really “interested in the truth.”
