What should have been a routine discussion about hiring a new city clerk instead turned into another revealing public clash over trust, process, and who is really influencing decisions inside Sunnyside City Hall.

Mayor Vicky Frausto was critical of the process

Mayor Vicky Frausto opened the discussion by making clear that, in her view, the issue was bigger than one hire. “It is our duty as council to set the policy that Pat will follow,” Frausto said, signaling frustration not just with the candidate search itself, but with the lack of clear council direction before the process moved forward.

INTERIM CITY MANAGER PAT HALEY

CONCERNS RAISED ABOUT CRONYISM AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

At the center of the debate was Interim City Manager Pat Haley’s decision to use Debbie Zabel and Deb Estrada as outside advisers in the clerk hiring process.

Debbie Zabel is wife of Sunnyside consultant Dave Zabel

Frausto questioned whether Zabel’s involvement created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest, noting that Haley himself was hired through GMP Consultants, a firm associated with Dave Zabel, who is Debbie Zabel’s husband. Haley has admitted to the Sunnyside City Council during his hiring that he and Dave Zabel have been friends for many years. Raising some eyebrows around city hall during the selection process.

Dave Zabel is a former city manager & consultant with GMP who helped recruit Pat Haley

 Frausto also raised concerns about Estrada’s participation, given her long and controversial history with the city.

Former Sunnyside City Clerk Debbie Estrada

That history matters. During the meeting, Frausto pointed to Estrada’s involvement in an executive session held the same day former City Manager Mike Gonzalez was placed on paid administrative leave. At the time, then-Mayor Dean Broersma publicly described Estrada as a consultant. But records previously obtained by La Voz Hispanic Newspaper showed she was not, in fact, a city consultant at that time — a discrepancy that continues to fuel skepticism about how some decisions were handled and explained to the public.

The conversation also turned to a major policy question: what Sunnyside should prioritize in a city clerk. Frausto argued that bilingual ability and community connection should not be treated as optional in a city that is overwhelmingly Hispanic. She emphasized that more than 70 percent of households in Sunnyside speak Spanish, making language access a practical issue, not a symbolic one.

Councilmember Julia Hart echoed at least part of that concern, acknowledging the importance of Spanish-speaking ability and local connection, while also stressing the city’s urgent need to fill the vacancy. “Bilingual is really important,” Hart said. But she added, “We really need someone right now,” capturing the tension that defined much of the debate.

That tension — between getting the process right and simply getting someone in the job — ran through the entire discussion.

Haley defended the process in detail and made clear that he believes the city does not have the luxury of starting over. “The clerk position is probably, next to the police chief, the most important position in the city administration,” Haley told council. He explained that the city had reached out to multiple cities and professional associations in search of candidates and tried to narrow the field based on public-sector experience, records work, and familiarity with government procedure.

According to Haley, neither Zabel nor Estrada selected the finalists, but were instead asked to help assess the final candidates because of their familiarity with city clerk responsibilities. He also said the city explored the possibility of finding an interim clerk who could train a permanent hire, but that effort was unsuccessful. Haley painted a picture of a city under immense pressure — short-staffed, burdened with vacancies, legal claims, labor issues, and a mounting public records backlog.

Sunnyside’s desperate need for a clerk is real. Since former City Clerk Jacqueline Renteria left for the City of Prosser, the city has been operating without a permanent replacement. At the same time, the city’s outside law firm, Ogden Murphy Wallace, has been helping handle public records requests, with multiple attorneys reportedly involved. The cost of that outside work was not discussed during this portion of the meeting.

Councilmember Keren Vazquez took a more supportive tone toward Haley, praising the explanation he gave the council. “Thank you for sharing your process, Pat,” Vazquez said. She also framed the matter in terms of internal culture, adding, “I think it is very important to have good culture.”

Still, Frausto made clear that her concerns were not about undermining hiring authority, but about the council doing its job by setting priorities before major administrative decisions are made. She argued that the community has been clear in what it wants from City Hall: stronger accountability, better direction, and hires that reflect the character and needs of the city itself.

As the discussion dragged on, it became increasingly clear that a majority of the council was not ready to stop Haley from moving forward with the current finalist, even if several members had concerns about the way the process was handled. Instead, the council appeared headed toward revisiting hiring policies, priorities, and procedures at a future workshop or strategy session.

City Attorney Julie Norton ultimately tried to clarify where the conversation had landed. “I think what I’m hearing is that the city manager should likely move forward with hiring this candidate,” Norton said, while adding that the council could later discuss “future policies and procedures” at a workshop.

That seemed to reflect the practical outcome of the discussion: move forward now, argue about the process later.

But Frausto was not ready to let the broader point go. In one of the sharpest lines of the night, she pushed back against suggestions that her concerns were merely emotional or personal. “People can call it emotional,” Frausto said. “I call it doing my job.”

In the end, the council may continue moving ahead with the current city clerk hire. But the public debate made clear that this was about far more than filling a vacancy. It was another sign of a council still divided over trust, transparency, and whether the people shaping Sunnyside’s future are truly aligned with the community they serve.