Up until two weeks ago, I produced special events for a local city. My position was eliminated as a result of budget cuts, but I’m not angry about it. Truth be told, I was burnt out and sought a new direction in my life. After the events of last week, however, it would have been nice to have been able to quit – if only to stand up for my principles.

For three years, I worked with people among the most capable and decent I’ve had the honor to know. What amazed me most, time after time, was a small group of people who went to such trouble and drama to vilify a staff who spend more time, effort, and education improving a city they don’t live in than they do with their own families.

The man who ran that city on a daily basis with integrity and standards was fired last week. After having just received an above-average review at the end of 2009. Two weeks into the new year, the body responsible gave only two days notice that they would be performing his next review. They said he had no need to worry and did not need to have a lawyer present.

On the night of his review, they locked him out of it, and then they fired him. Five minutes later, they replaced him with the mayor’s second largest contributor. Who was at work, having closed door meetings, the very next day. If that’s not a coordinated plan, I don’t know what is. And knowing in intimate detail how much time it takes just to get an event permit for the Fourth of July, I also don’t know how you can coordinate that kind of effort in a single week.

Now, I don’t know this new guy. And I don’t work there anymore. But my point in bringing this up in the Maple Valley Reporter is this – thank God we live in Maple Valley – because whether or not you or I respect that council or the man they fired, the manner in which the whole thing took place appeared duplicitous and manipulative.

I have to wonder how many of those citizens will realize this even happened, or more importantly, why. Because from my perspective, it had nothing to do with performance. It had to do with people interested in looking good, rather than DOING good, running on a platform of change.

Change – while it sounds great – can be very, very dangerous if the people are not participating. Not because change is bad, but because unspecific and arbitrary change can be a license to abuse power. Those wielding it can justify making any change they want simply by employing the opinions of a small (dare I say, special?) group or by making broad statements capable of being interpreted any number of ways.

Having – for the first time in my life – actually gone to my own city’s council meetings before and after the election and done my own research to learn about our members, I can at least feel secure in the fact that Maple Valley’s leadership appears genuinely concerned about ethics and responsibility.

I encourage you to go to a meeting, too. Or read the recaps. The paper, the Web site, anything. Because if I’ve learned one thing, it’s that happy people don’t go to council meetings. They don’t often write letters or e-mails, they don’t stop in to say ‘great job’. Unhappy people do.

Those are the people our council and staff hear from most, and if you don’t know what’s being discussed, the potential exists for some very unexpected changes.

Jules Maas is a Maple Valley resident and blogger who will be writing a column for The Reporter.