Yale fires embattled city manager Lorellie Natke

Full council room: Officials and residents pack the Yale City Council room on Aug. 10 when dozens of residents gathered to voice their concerns over several issues, including the performance of the city manager. Following a closed session, the council voted 5-0 to fire the city manager. [Dave Fredrick/Expositor staff]

By Barbara Brown Stasik

The Yale Expositor

YALE — The Yale City Council voted unanimously on Monday, Aug. 17, to fire City Manager Lorellie Natke, ending years of mounting friction between her and local leadership.

Council went into a closed session, then returned for the 5-0 vote to terminate her employment.

The situation came to a head on Monday evening after council learned that Natke had dropped off new rules for C. Roy’s Inc. in order for their sewer hook-ups to be compliant with city and state regulations. 

Officials seemed surprised about the new rules and said they didn’t have knowledge or opportunity to make changes.

Owners Nancy and Jen Roy attended the meeting and told council the new rules and deadlines made it nearly impossible for their company to complete before it would force the business to close.

“We cannot hold on much longer,” said Nancy Roy. “This is worse than a slap in the face from all of you.”

The Roy family said part of the issue on the new 41 pages of regulations was testing the outflow from C. Roy’s three times a week at what was referred to as exorbitant costs to the company. 

A lawyer for the company was also in attendance and told council he felt the approach and process by the city was inappropriate and handled backward. 

He said he could not believe the requests from C. Roy’s for a meeting to discuss the requirements were ignored and no technical information was ever provided before the new regulations were under implementation — making the timeline nearly impossible to meet. 

Council did not respond and a statement was read by Mayor Brenda Krzak telling the packed room that they had been told by legal counsel not to make any comments. 

City residents had been calling for the council to fire Natke for weeks, after the problems with C. Roy’s came to light. By that time, the hometown business had struggled for several months to comply with the city — even installing a costly inground holding system that Natke later said was not going to work.

Several residents and Roy family members spoke to council again on Monday evening, including Denny Roy, who told the council this process had been very stressful on the family-owned company. 

“I don’t know why we aren’t doing what we always do in Yale and work together,” he said. “This is an over 100-year-old company. It has never been in our history not to work with this city and the people here. Does the city manager work for you, or do you work for her?”

David Gardner, of Yale, asked council if they had even seen the new permits or regulations before they were hand-delivered to C. Roy’s, to which several council members shook their heads. 

Nicole Northrup, of Jeddo Road, asked council how people could make them see how important Roy’s was to the Yale community.

CJ’s Restaurant owner Elizabeth Dabney told council that one of the reasons she opened her business in Yale was because of successful businesses like Roy’s and McMillin’s. 

Dabney said that what happens to longstanding businesses affects other, smaller businesses like hers and told council that her restaurant had not been inspected at all. 

“I think you need to read this room,” said Gerri Armstrong. “This town cares about what happens to C. Roy’s and all of our businesses. We need you to work together with them and we need to solve this.”

Mayor Pro-tem Tammy Hazel told the audience she wanted to personally apologize to C. Roy’s for the way they had been treated. 

“I understand that it looks like we have not worked with you and only the attorneys have benefitted,” said Hazel. “We were told by our attorney not to speak and it’s very embarrassing that we have been left in the dark … who set these rules and the fees and the 30-day timetable, because we didn’t.”

After comments, Councilperson Sharon Krosnicki made a motion to order the suspension of the city manager for 30 days with pay pending more action. 

“We have not known so many things,” said Krosnicki. 

The motion was seconded by Councilperson Shelley O’Brien, but failed in a 3-3 vote.

“I am thrown for a loop by all this,” said Councilman Anthony Hackett. “I am not a wastewater expert, but we are just seeing this permit. This has been a circus, but we will figure this out.”

Krzak became emotional after the vote, thanking the citizens and Roy’s for speaking out. 

“It was tough to hear some of these things tonight that we did not know,” said Krzak. “It has been stressful for you, and it has been stressful and emotional for this council. But, we are going to stick in there and work this out together.”

After the regular meeting concluded, the council voted to go into closed session. When they came out of the closed session, a motion was made in the open meeting by Councilman Eric Kleitch and seconded by Hazel to immediately fire Natke with four months of severance pay. The vote passed 5-0, with Hackett leaving before the vote was taken.

Natke came to Yale in 2022 after leaving her position as the downtown development authority director in Imlay City.