Winlock City Council members met on Wednesday, May 13, for a special meeting after Councilor Jeramy Allman pointed out a procedural issue during the council’s Monday, May 11 meeting — the hiring of Lily Niles as the new Winlock city assistant clerk without council approval.
According to city code, council approval is required for all city staff hires. Because of this, Niles’ hiring was not the only one on the agenda for last Wednesday’s meeting, as four other city employees going back to 2022 had apparently been hired without council approval as well.
They included Justin Moon, who began working for the city on July 21, 2025; Jaymz Brossard, who began working on May 10, 2024; Joshua Morhous, who began working on Nov. 1, 2022; and James Argren, who began working on April 12, 2022.
Allman was focused mainly on Niles’ hiring, as he was concerned about pay and the fact that Niles lacked the minimum of three years experience as a city clerk or in a similar role as city staff.
While Niles’ mother currently serves on the neighboring Toledo City Council, and she herself frequents Toledo council meetings and is familiar with how city governments are run, she hasn’t officially worked for one before.
Winlock Mayor Victoria Marincin explained the only other experience other applicants listed was “food service” and “dog handler.”
Allman still took issue with how Niles was chosen despite lacking the minimum required qualifications the council outlined earlier this year when they approved the creation of the assistant city clerk position, as previously reported by The Chronicle.
“That’s why we do panel interviews, so there’s multiple people on these interviews … We do that so there’s no favoritism, or maybe we’re related to people (hires), stuff like that. It’s a small town,” Allman said.
Allman also claimed that there actually had been panel interviews conducted prior to the hiring of Argren, Moon and Morhous, along with department heads. Marincin stated the department head, in this case Winlock City Clerk Maureen Crabtree, was involved with Niles’ hiring process.
While Councilor Chuck Camps confirmed he was involved with one of the interviews, Allman acknowledged that the panel interviews may not have been properly documented in city council meeting minutes. Camps added as far as he could remember, at least two councilors had been involved with the hiring of the other employees.
Councilor Alishia Hornburg took issue with Allman’s worry of the appearance of nepotism in the hiring of city staff. She claimed it already looked that way, as one of the new hires on the agenda was the son of former Winlock Mayor Brandon Svenson, who was hired during Svenson’s tenure as mayor.
“You want to talk about preferential treatment?” Hornburg asked.
Allman countered and stated Svenson was not involved in any of the interview process, and even advised the council against approving hiring his son.
Hornburg still stated she believed Niles’ hiring was not preferential treatment.
“I think that the city needs some help, and they got a candidate who passed all the tests, and they wanted to hire this person,” Hornburg said.
As for the pay, the assistant clerk position rate by the city’s collective bargaining agreement is $20.65 an hour “at the low end,” according to Crabtree.
While he wasn’t personally opposed to Niles’ hiring, Allman stressed it still did not look good that she did not meet the position’s minimum requirements.
Winlock City Attorney Jim Buzzard explained that those hiring requirements weren’t actually legally binding, and the city council could still approve hiring a candidate who didn’t meet those requirements as long as the department head was OK with it still.
In attendance at the special meeting was Winlock Water/Sewer Superintendent Rodney Cecil, who stated while the city did have an official procedure requiring council approval for city staff hires, it wasn’t usually followed in the past.
He added the city also has an in-house training program focused on training young workers like Niles without experience.
“It’s hard for them to get into the workforce … This can be a good gig for them, and I get that we want this procedure in place, but it really hasn’t been consistently followed since I’ve been here,” Cecil said.
Cecil added when he was hired, he himself didn’t have all of the required job qualifications, but learned them through on-the-job training.
“That’s what the point is, you learn them as you go,” he said.
Allman stressed that the only reason he was raising this issue was to try to avoid liability issues from lawsuits which could be filed against the city for not properly following procedure.
While not in attendance at the meeting in person as she was attending a Future Farmers of America club event, Niles was present on a FaceTime call for an impromptu interview by the council.
Niles said despite being young and a college student, she intended to be fully devoted to her work as the Winlock assistant clerk.
She also stated she had been involved in her student government throughout high school and was interested in city governments as she had already been attending Toledo City Council meetings for about half a year.
“I’m a big believer in we all have a set path … I have been involved in a lot of government things, I understand small town government very well. And with that, this (job) falling into my lap, all these things that I have had, has guided me to this. And I’m very interested in working in government,” Niles said. “If I were to stay in this position, I could definitely see it as being a career for me.”
Following the interview, the councilors unanimously approved hiring Niles. They also retroactively approved the hiring of the other four city staff going back to 2022.
