Threats & Intimidation: Morgantown City Manager Haws Attacks Councilwoman After She Exposed Dirty Contract
At a December 20, 2022 Morgantown City Council meeting, a vote was called for a new employment contract of City Manager Andro Kim Haws. Haws is the highest-paid city official in Morgantown's history, receiving $635,404 of your taxpayer money since 2020.
After the camera recording the public meeting was shut off, a scowling Haws closed in on the councilwoman who had just stood up for all 350 city employees.
Burning with rage over her comments about his contract, Haws hissed angrily under his breath to avoid attention, “How dare you bring this up! You don’t have any type of decorum! You’re not supposed to talk about this stuff during public meetings! Why would you do that!?,” according to recollections from a confidential source.
"You’re not supposed to talk about this stuff during public meetings!"
Dirty, secretive contract exposed during public meeting: Haws has meltdown
Why was Haws so angry? He was attempting to increase the amount of paid time off in his employment contract.
Why would Haws' amount of PTO need to be so top secret? We found one big reason to keep this information hidden from the great people of Morgantown.
Eleven months prior, Haws unveiled a devastating new policy to reduce paid time off for all city workers including firemen and police officers.
In a January 11, 2022 story titled, City removes comp time for understaffed police department, the Dominion Post writes that “the city informed the department that [police] officers were losing the ability to accrue comp time, or paid time off...”
Haws’ communication director said, “...[paid time off] is being eliminated for other city departments as well...” A surprising reason was given for this sudden change, “This is because, historically, the comp time is not used within a reasonable time frame.”
Now fast forward 11 months. You might think Haws is joining his fellow city workers and taking a cut to his own PTO. But, you would be wrong.
Haws wants his personal PTO increased. And not a small increase either. Haws demands an unbelievable 7x the amount of seniority he has actually earned.
Councilman Bill Kawecki asked city attorney Ryan Simonton, “My understanding is that’s within our current adopted employee policies and consistent with that?”
Attorney Simonton replied, “That’s the accrual rate of PTO for employees with 15 plus years of service under the current handbook.”
Kawecki confidently replied, “Very good!”
But Kawecki snapped his neck toward Councilwoman Danielle Trumble as she interjected, “Uh?”
“15 plus years of service?”
“No offence to the city manager, but he’s been with the city for 2 years, so how does that work," Trumble asked.
Attorney Simonton’s eyes shifted rapidly as he anxiously explained the city’s policy, rules forbidding Haws’ outlandish request, can be “modified” to break the rules and gift Haws a special golden contract.
Councilwoman Danielle Trumble laughed at the absurdity, telling council, “We currently have a very significant amount of staff, particularly firefighters, that are complaining that the new employee policy—that we did not vote on, I did not vote on it—does not allow them enough time off or as much time off as they previously had. That’s one of the things that we are hearing. So, I guess I’m having a hard time with management getting extra time off when we’re taking it away from employees.”
"I’m having a hard time with management getting extra time off when we’re taking it away from employees.”
Councilwoman Jennifer Selin a.k.a. “Jenny” came to Haws’ defense, leading to a tense 10 second silence as she stared down Councilwoman Trumble. Witnessing the stare down, Councilman Kawecki eased tensions with a click of his tongue and began asking questions.
Councilman Mohummed Abdullah Ghannam a.k.a. “Joe Abu-Ghannam” also tried to defend Haws with a workaround, “Do we give experience years for people who come from one place to another?”
Councilman Ghannam was alluding to the fact Haws had been a longtime city manager in Bridgeport, WV until Bridgeport’s city council voted to fire Haws in 2019. Haws started as Morgantown’s city manager in 2020. Attorney Simonton informed Councilman Ghannam that the answer was no.
An annoyed Attorney Simonton finally quipped, “This [contract] was prepared at the direction of council.”
A puzzled Councilwoman Trumble replied, “I guess I’m confused about that. When you say at the direction of council, who is that—did we ever talk about this, I never talked about this? ... We did not discuss any other terms or changes.”
Another 9 second silence filled the chambers as Attorney Simonton of Kay Casto & Chaney PLLC appeared afraid to answer. Councilwoman Selin finally sneered, “So, what would you like to do with this then?” to which Trumble laughed.
Selin looked agitated, “Well, we will have further discussions on this if that’s what you all would like to do.” She turned to Councilman Kawecki and passive aggressively asked again, “Would you like to have further discussions on this?”
Kawecki clicked his tongue and let out a nervous laugh, before stuttering. “I certainly want to keep our city manager...” while looking down at the floor, he continued, “Contracts are negotiated pieces of contracts.” Selin replied, “Yes!,” in the strange, unintelligible interaction.
Selin then interrupted Kawecki about a dozen times in an attempt to regain control and get him to stop talking. Haws sat a few feet away during the nearly 15 minute humiliation. It became apparent Haws and Selin did not expect other council members to challenge them.
Selin decided to neither vote on the contract nor table it—an unusual procedural move. Weeks later, Haws ultimately received his juicy new contract. WVMAD has confirmed the secretly prepared Haws/Selin contract and the final approved contract were different. Although, the precise number of misbegotten additional paid time off days Haws received is currently unknown.
We reached out to Councilwoman Danielle Trumble for comment. Councilwoman Trumble confirmed the reported details of the December 20th intimidation incident with Haws. She added, “In my mind, it was clear that the mayor [Councilwoman Jenny Selin] had negotiated the manager’s new contract without the input or knowledge of any of us.”
Editorial Note: A draft version of this story stated Haws made physical contact with Trumble. In our request for comment, Trumble was unable to confirm Haws made physical contact with her, but "if so" she definitely does not "remember it as an aggressive [touch]." WVMAD has removed this allegation from our final reporting.
WVMAD called Andro Kim Haws and Councilwoman Jennifer Selin multiple times but no one picked up the phone. We waited over a week to hear back after leaving multiple voicemails. However, neither Haws nor Selin returned our calls for comment on this story.
Tip of the iceberg: Stay tuned as WVMAD goes undercover to bust Morgantown’s corrupted officials.
What do you think, Morgantown? As the highest-paid employee in our city government, does Haws represent you and your values?
Public Video: Download the video here or watch here on Youtube starting at 47:53